e e e special City commission meeting of the city of St Pete Beach today is Thursday April 11th 2024 it is 400 p.m. let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all city clerk if you'll please do a roll call vice mayor Lorenzen here commissioner Marriott here commissioner Philz here commissioner as Nikki here mayor patrilla here we have a quorum thank you uh before we get started are there any changes to the agenda as proposed okay um I will make uh one change um Fran had sorry not Renee I had a couple just one quick comment that she want wanted to make before the audience comments um if that's all right can I get a motion to approve the agenda as amended I motion to approve the agenda as amended Second City Clerk if you please do a roll call commissioner Philz yes commissioner res Nikki yes vice mayor Lorenzen here commissioner marot yes mayor patrilla yes motion carries thank you thank you mayor thank you Commissioners um as you know we're going to be doing public interviews tonight with candidates I know you had one-on-one interviews with candidates yet yesterday can you hear me okay just a little closer little just yeah thank you um we're having public interviews with uh city manager candidates this evening and we had uh oneon-one interviews yesterday um we're going to after we interview tonight we're going to go into a debriefing session where we we Rank and rate candidates and see if we're going to come to a determination on who our top rank cand candidates are um one of the suggestions that I have is that um perhaps instead of just reading them off as far as how you rank them and finding out who's our top candidate I can actually assign a numeric value of these candidates based on how you've placed them in your ranking sheet and we can look at the numbers I'm a numbers person we don't have to live by that we don't have to die by that uh it's not cement we can change our minds and um I'm if you're so inclined I'd be glad to even ask you to provide me your rank rankings from yesterday and I can be telling that as we're going through the interviews and that would be information that will be helpful I think when we get to uh the latter part of this evening where you have you will then rank them in the public interview setting so if you are inclined to do that mayor I just wanted to offer to do that okay um so the suggestion is that we uh provide reene the copy of our rankings from yesterday that way she has them independent of us seeing what each others have come up with she will then give us a tally that's going to be a blind tally without if that's all right um we can if you all haven't already filled yours out from yesterday maybe we take a few minutes um and then provide them right after audience comments mayor can I just ask one question do all of these have your names on them not mine they have to be identifiable okay okay for public records okay sure thank all right thank you uh we will provide those to you maybe right after you give us your fin final instructions okay so about all right city clerk do we have any audience comments we do Ken heo if you please come to the microphone state your name and address for the record Ken heel 2032 West Vina delmare Boulevard St P Beach Florida you have three minutes okay uh this is an unusual uh time for me to come up and speak because I've heard so much about uh how bad everything is in the city how bad all of you are and everything I'd like to compliment you all for one taking the job and two for being here uh and why I want to say that is because I have a picture that's on my phone this is a picture from red white and booze I know you guys are being sued by red white and booze but this is um Tuesday night this week and this is indicative of what we've endured for the last two years this is a picture from our dock over about 500 600 feet away and it's a picture of a giant Spotlight that he put on his property and it shines in every house on South Vena and then every uh Donal along pass way just lights up the warf completely uh that evening we sent out a email uh to the City commissioners uh or our commissioner Rich Lorenzen and then uh City staff and I think they're the most unsung heroes that I've ever dealt with uh Jennifer B sitting here Pete Dar Steven Rivera uh Brandon Barry uh Kristen Coleman uh my God what they do for the city they turned it into this in one day I know it doesn't show but the giant Spotlight is gone they went out there they asked ask them to turn it down and why I came was because I sat through the auditions when you guys were interviewing and you said something that you grew up here you lived here you wanted to raise your kids here you wanted to die here I had postcode Envy from Golfport from 1970 to 2010 and I finally made it out to the beach and by God I want to live here the rest of my life I want my kids to live here the rest of the life but this is what we deal with and but I want you to take away that's the bad side of it but it's these people who work here that make it a true joy for being here and I thank you all for doing what you do thank you thank you sir that's the only one I have okay Renee you're up again Renee thank you mayor I am seriously trying to turn off my phone again um as you know we're going to be interviewing candidates tonight for uh a public interview session uh all five candidates are excited to be here um they had a a honestly a great on-site visit um they have had a chance to do a a self-guided tour today they had a chance to meet with all of you yesterday uh interact with the Department directors last night there was a meet and greet which honestly I thought was fantastic a good turnout I'm going to guess there was at least 75 people there if not more a lot of them coming in going but at all time it was a really nice time to interact and a time to really get to know the folks that came community members and staff members and and others so um we have we're going to line them up over here in this room and bring them in one at a time we have a schedule of about um 30 minutes for each candidate we may run a little bit over a little bit less it's just an e and flow um but that is what we're anticipating um we expect that you'll probably end up asking about I don't know five to seven questions which is sufficient for a 30- minute time limit um but that said we're not going to hit a buzzer and um you know it's the gong show or anything we're not going to run them out if you know when the time is up we're going to make sure that you know we we we have what we need uh as far as time is concern I would encourage you like I'm trying to do myself turn off alarms or anything that might just you know disrupt the process I just it's always a reminder to turn phones off and um and notifications um the uh we're going to talk about the questions in just a minute um but what we are going to do after the candidates are finish interviewing is we're going to have a debriefing session and that's where we'll discuss the candidates further determine if there is a will of the commission to move forward with a specific candidate or more than one or however we may land we just really don't know what that's going to be um but um there there's a lot of business to do at the end of these public interviews we've got a lot of things to talk about and walk through uh but we'll we'll get through that so uh with that said I would like to turn your attention to the questions I actually sent you some sample questions for the um public interview I have copies of those if you need additional copies throughout um and and those are just suggested questions I I think it's probably a good set of questions I think we had a couple Commissioners uh that that um shared with me yesterday they would like to see an add-on somewhere in those questions relative to community engagement and I think it's very important certainly to this community and it's worth having a discussion about with the candidates tonight um so with that said mayor I guess I really would kind of defer to you about how you would like this to start often times we'll just you know everybody takes turns and asking questions um we could start over here on my left with commissioner Marriott in the first question and then just circle around everyone takes turns asking a question and then when the next candidate comes out we could start with the next commissioner um commissioner Philz for the first question that way everybody's asking different questions throughout if you understand what I mean so that's said I'd like for us to look at the questions and come up with a a good solid set that we would ask every single candidate right there's going to be followup and clarification questions of course with each one but I'd really like to have a good um solid set of questions as we start yeah I think what what we talked about is since we have a limited amount of time there's five of us five of them I think we could probably start off giving each one of them the opportunity just to do question one as an introduction sort of you know who are you what qualifies us tell us about yourself and then maybe from the remaining seven questions is so we can each pick one question and we consistently ask that same question to all the candidates so that we're asking the same question to all five at the same time we give them brief time for introduction and commissioner Marriott starts with the first candidate and we go this way on the second candidate Nick will start and then on the third candidate commissioner res Nikki will start and we'll just go this way so that we're not always the same person asking the same question is that yeah yeah and that way we can ask one question and maybe leave a little bit of time for followup on that first question almost like a debate style give him a couple minutes answer first one quick followup to that question but so that we can so we have a consistent process so that every candidate gets the same five questions an opportunity to answer those so that we're not asking different questions of the different candidates okay if that sounds good like a reasonable plan so if I'm understanding correctly so for instance first candidate commissioner Marriot we'll ask question one well question one we'll ask of everyone right that's that's their introduction right tell us about yourself you know what qualifies you what experience you're bring to the table right just as an introduction and then we'll go from from that point question two three four five six or if you all don't like question five we can skip question five and use eight instead so I if you look at on the questions if there's any particular questions you really prefer and then that could be your question that we assign to you I would like to do that because that that way we know which ones sure so we'll start commission we to say the numbers we know to yeah which number would you like uh oh I I don't care which one I ask but I think I think question number seven is a very important one so I think we need to ask your in that case all right so that's district one number seven and we we got to stick with these questions or can we we don't have to stick to these questions we do have to stick to the questions being consistent across all five candidates okay answer that we're not asking yeah so a question i' I'd like to ask is um describe a time and and your work experience where you felt you've brought the community together sure okay I think that that duve tales really nicely with number two yeah really yeah I mean you don't have to ask number two I'm just saying that that actually takes care of number two anyway so yeah added to it okay commissioner is Nikki any favorites my favorite was taken button um the number four okay and commissioner laurenson I'll take uh number eight that's all right okay and then I'll take number three okay can can I um one second can I switch to four to five just because I think four and three kind of relate to each other depending sure absolutely so you taking five now yes just because they could feed to each other MH scratch yeah we can kind of use like four as a followup to three if we want to exactly just to you know help clarify or expand so we're each asking the same question each time to yeah we'll just start the sequence in which question but you have your question it'll be your question ask I think that'll keep it the most consistent okay and mayor just to clarify one last time that first one is yeah so when they when they come up I'll say you know I I'll read question one and say can you by means of introduction can you please okay yep excellent with that said I'm going to bring in our first candidate Mr Glenn Adams and um they they have not received the questions they do not know the questions I had a time or anything like perfect mayor just for clarification are we we've already most of us already filled out the one-on ones we also using this for the I think just one Renee would you like the ones from yesterday I would yeah and then we're also using the one for tonight right yes okay may we can do a recess after the interview questions are done take 15 minutes and then Renee can tally all the and we want our name on this correct correct please thank you okay that's F hello good afternoon if you'll please state your name for the record my name is Glen T Adams thank you Mr Adams um we will be asking you um five questions uh each one of us has prepared one question to ask uh with potential followup to that question um but to start us off I would like uh if you could just take a few minutes to just introduce yourself and briefly explain from your perspective how your background uh prepares you for this position uh first off I want to thank you all for this opportunity um it's it's a really an amazing opportunity for me as I my wife and I have spent uh the better part of the last few days since Sun Sunday looking at this community and we've fallen in love with the people here there's huge issues but there the people here are amazing and so we really enjoyed that so I appreciate this opportunity so um I will try to back this up and try to go as fast as I can through it 1994 I was brand new to Savannah Georgia and uh good friend of mine was an alderman in the uh Savannah uh city council and he was telling me about City councils and everything like that and we got Sid swiped by a a hurricane and what I mean by that is we had a hurricane that was downgraded to a level zero so it became a tropical storm but we had a huge rain event and a lot of flooding occurred and the the city administrator did a fantastic job of getting everything back to normal and such a fast way that the weekend was back to normal and I was sitting there going that's something I want to do and so in the back of my head I kept that in the back trying to find a way to get to that point I had uh quite a bit of time as an engineer and you know you you do things like in Hawaii there was hurricane and Niki that hit and you could help the community there um it changed the laws that allowed installations to actually help first and then ask for using fund FS later on and as you go through your life and start to see how you can make an impact on the community you start seeing the things that add up to being exactly what it takes to be a member of a city government and to serve and those kind of things are you know when I was in Iraq we had 1,200 engineer soldiers rebuilding the infrastructure in Baghdad we uh then I became a a facilities branch chief in um Japan supporting 85 installations and 102,000 Soldiers and Sailors Airmen Marines in their families uh across 85 installations doing over a billion dollars worth of host nation funded construction after I retired from that I I went back started my own business and you know I I got involved with City councils and would come in and say hey these are the things that you should be doing and because I'm I'm the kind of person that you don't have a problem if you don't have a solution I'd give Solutions and so they asked me to be on the water and sewage board and so it's about being involved with things and then I've went out to White Sands Missile Range and came the chief of staff which is really the equivalent of being a deputy County Administrator because it's 400 square miles of installation and the difference on that is is the businesses you're accountable for their success too when you're on installation so not only do you have to provide all the services you have to make make sure the businesses there are successful at doing their job so it's one step up and then I was fortunate to become the the city manager of Santa Fe Texas um did some amazing things reworked uh water problems fixed routine flooding um created quite a coalition to do that and I I really got the bug to be a a member of a community and and help it get to an Excellence point um regrettably that that Community didn't want change anymore and so I was the face of change and you can't stop change once you start it uh but they are taking credit for a lot of things that we started when when we were there and so that was very enjoyable so you can see how this moves on and then I tried to retire again I I really am lousy at retiring so was my dad he worked until he passed away um I will tell you I'm very much the same way and so I became a interim City Manager for personal Virginia they had a whole bunch of problems I'm sure you can read about a lot of people have read about it and I will tell you it's it's about my personal Pride managing to um save my Integrity that I refused to continue on in that position uh pre previous inter manager did uh quit in the middle of a meeting I gave them my two weeks notice and allowed them have an opportunity to to find somebody else to be in the interim and so then I left and because of my actions there the Berkeley group hired me to be the city of manager of Martinsville Virginia as an interim basis while we recruited for a a full city manager so I did it as fast as I can I drive I'm at this point where I have the experience I have the background 85% of my professional experiences is not in my resume because it doesn't translate to a in a way that most people would understand it so I just kind of glossed over it and so there's a lot of things as being an army engineer that back up to and reinforce the skills that are required of a city manager so that answers the background and how I ended up here thank you sir commissioner Marriott sure so this is this is a uh a a big question but in uh you know 5 to seven minutes um what do you think are the biggest opportunities challenges here in St Pete Beach both immediately and then planning for the future so I would like to focus on the opportunities first um as I mentioned the people here are fantastic they're very friendly um there's a different vibe whenever you go out and talk to people and the the background of that is everybody wishes they moved here sooner but they also tell you about a time when they knew somebody who did something who was a neighbor and this neighbor owned this organization and they would put on events for the community Etc um I think an opportunity for us is to reinvite our citizens to be part of the community's future and invite them to participate much like you all have stood up and said I will do it between uh December and January but asking your neighbors in the community to reach out and help get us to the next phase because we have within our our city people with the networks with the resources with the connections to help us get our get to a better position much faster than we can do individually so that's the real opportunity um I would say the weakness is is we're not a community right now um I would tell you that from just the conversations that I had last night um there's concerns that the the development is taking a priority over the residents um there's a bit of trust that was lost in the process for the serata hotel that I think can be fixed um I can't guarantee it be fixed but you a method that I've talked to many of you all about is possibly getting an independent contractor to look at what they submitted what our comprehensive plan is and what our zoning ordinances are and see if they mesh up and if they don't mesh up having that honest conversation with whoever should make those concessions to fix um but I will tell you that there's more than just that you have sea level rise you have uh King tides and we have low lands and I went down to the Don CeSar area and it you I don't have to say I could show you the pictures that I took I was it's concerning that's the same flooding that I saw in Santa Fe Texas but when you see it's coming from the bay it's more difficult to sit there and go well this is not an easy fix and so basically you have to do what New Orleans did you put up something on the outside to protect from outside water and then you got to have series of pumps drainage systems and redundant power and pumps um that's very expensive to do and solving that equation is not something you can do overnight uh but there's you got to create that Coalition of people people who can get that done and it's really a a city county state federal government trying to find the solution between all of those um but the backbone of everything here is the people and I haven't met anybody who doesn't love this community with all their heart and part of the passions of both directions that you you see the arguing about is that they want this community to be success uccessful and they don't feel it's getting there yet so I I hope that answered your question I feel like it did absolutely thank you thanks sir commissioner Fels all right hi Glen um my question is can you describe a time or an example uh in your career that you've brought your community together that you worked in absolutely um I I think Santa Fe Texas is the best example of that uh I arrived in Santa Fe in February of 2020 one month before covid hit and as Co started occurring I I foresaw the need to communicate with the the community talk to the council and I started doing daily updates called Santa Fe live and I went live every single day with the information I got from the state and County um conference calls that were done multiple times through the day and I went from in a city of 15,000 people to 46,000 followers in a matter of less than six months and I had complaints to me that I was on at the same time of the president of the United States and they wanted to watch me live because I would answer their questions and so I feel that was the first in inroad to that then on May 15th 2020 uh we had 9 and 1 12 inches of rain in an hour and a half a real flooding condition um I went out in my wife's jeep thank goodness she wasn't around when I took it and we I went around and looked at the community and I was flagged down to go different places and I was in somebody's backyard kneed Deep in water going I don't know how to fix this but we got to find a way that was Friday after 6:00 p.m. when the storm hit and Monday by noon I had our mayor I had our street department I had the county um commissioner who represented us I had the County engineer the drainage District all out there discussing it and we came up with a solution of draining it just like a bathtub and while we're doing that conversation the mayor asked me why I don't have find a way to solve the routine flooding and so we created a coalition of Two Cities uh the county the drainage district and we clean drainage patterns all the way out to the gulf and we fixed routine flooding in City of Santa Fe so in about 7 months time I had pretty much unified a city that uh never thought they would ever see a day that they wouldn't wouldn't flood because of rain and so they were the same people that were hit by Harvey and had 54 in of water in the backyards and everybody has seen and heard that story but now they don't flood thank you thank you sir commissioner Riki Hi how are you um what are your strategies for hiring evaluating um current staff measuring their performance and retaining employees and managing the underperforming staff that's a very big multi-art question so I'll start one at a time so I stole my dad's Legacy of hiring hard and leading easy um I always create a panel of hiring agents and very rarely are they the majority from my organization uh I set up a process for example in Santa Fe they ended up not using it but the logic is there but this is how I do it I find two people who are critical from within the or organization sometimes me sometimes it's not me uh then I go on to outside where they can best get some support so I I got a police chief I got the uh Sheriff's organization and I'm I'm having a Constable's office so I got members of all three of them in higher leadership I did have the police chief from another city and so when the selection process goes through you create questions and you get the questions from all these different people and then when they see the resume and they evaluate against the criteria that we create together you will find that cream of the top ones rise up and there's a natural break point and then when you do the questions in the interviewing you now have a good diverse background of people who are selecting the top candidate to be the person who is representing us from that point on the next part of that is is once that police CH police chief is hired you have a sheriff a constable and a a sister city police chief who are vested in the success of that individual and therefore you are able to have some backbone and support of people outside of your city being able to ensure the success of that individual you brought in and so that's one way for hiring and I've done it for whatever organization I'm doing if I have public works I have people from the either the county or the state come in and be part of that same process and I did that up in Martinsville um so when you talk about the people um dealing with directors one on one I will tell you I'm constantly making an assessment I believe in Mentor training and developing people I I mentioned to a couple of you guys that there's an old saying in the military you go to the war with the people you have not the people you wish you have so make sure you train the people you have to be the people you wished you could have so I make sure I take the time and Mentor train and develop my team and how that comes across is I have a counseling session it's tough for me every month with every single one of my direct reports until I'm comfortable with them and they're comfortable with me in my role and why do I say it that way is because in my counseling I require them to come back to me with how I'm failing them so I am holding myself responsible for those same actions that I need to do to make sure they're successful at the same time I am holding them accountable for not only the job that's in paper but we all know that all of our directors are doing doing things that aren't on paper and we have that discussion over the first few ones and we agree that this is your job and then my responsibil is to make sure they're capable of doing it and have the resources to be successful at it their job is to do it with ethics and do the same job of Mentor training their PE team to do the same stuff because I believe they're the experts I don't need to do somebody else's job they're hard to be the expert if I don't have the expert I send them to training as long as they're willing if they're not willing I don't need them so that's that part the part that you're you're talking the next iteration is is developing the bench underneath them um that that is a a second and third order effect of how I Mentor train and develop I require them to do that same mentoring training and developing but at the same time I'm going out across the community catching our team doing their jobs and having conversations with them and finding out one did I resource them right sometimes I didn't two is there more intelligent ways to do things that we're not seeing but three are they getting the information are they getting the the the permission to kind of fail forward you can make a mistake as long as you're doing it honestly trying to do the right thing and therefore you have the ability bring bad news forward and not get punished because that's when you start getting things hidden but as you do this people get permission to do the right thing right then and there they see something wrong they either fix it or report it and they create the the organization is teaming together next part of that is I hold a monthly I mean weekly discussion with all the directors where they're all required to have the top three things they're working on and as they become a team they start saying well hey while you're doing that this is this person over here is good person to talk to about helping you out on this and by the way I can help you with this project too with doing this this this and it it creates that team and having that knowledge across it at the same time mind you I'm talking a lot but at the same time that I'm learning on all of this I will be providing information to you all so that you guys are a breast of all the same issues that I am because I'm not doing my job unless you guys are aware of the risks we're assuming and the risk therefore you are assuming because we are so you can adjust things and I can make recommendations adjusting resources so that we we fix the right thing I think that answered your question but a little longer than I I'd hoped yes thank you sir commissioner renen just to clarify do I get the last question or you still have I'll I'll take the last one okay just want to make sure uh good to see you again Mr Adams um so bottom line it's two questions uh why you ented in this position sir please say that again I'm sorry why are you interested in this position bottom line bottom line there's two parts to that bottom line and you already know that because I've mentioned to you I came here early to make sure it's a good fit and this is such a beautiful Community the people here are fantastic um they're passionate but they're fantastic they got the heart to help this community they want this community to be successful the second part of it is I'm a bit of a I can't retire and I love and I I'm the happiest when I'm helping a community be the best they can be and I hate to use that Army thing but is that's when I'm the happiest and it's I won't say it's just a passion but it's it's something more where you're there and just like I was out in the storm watching 9 and 1 12 inches of rain come down and I knew I needed to be out there to find out what's really going on in the community and that's when I got the answers and so it it is a passion that I have and you know I I told you the the backdrop to that is is I think ahead and we bought a house in Alabama that my my kids were supposed to be going to Atlanta to have their jobs and they didn't and now they've met significant others and they're going different places than they currently are so my wife side logic is let's go somewhere where they'll want to visit and as I was doing that research that's when I found out you all needed a city manager my wife did the research and said you know this s sounds like an amazing community and here I am great thank you and the second question on that one is uh and I hate to ask this now because we have one more question coming but is anything you like to add or clarify um that you haven't already covered I know that's an open question um I think the only thing that's got to be clarified as Pro probably personal just in case people didn't understand that scenario and go read the papers now that I told them to I was asked to do stuff that violated ethics and violated Virginia open meetings act and I was required by the council and I had the I made them do in writing much like I asked you all to do hold me to a standard and set those conditions and so it's in writing what I was expected to do and I was expected to give a very candid weekly update to them and so one of the uh council members when I after I submitted my resignation said thank you very much for writing those very informative weekly updates to which Freedom of Information Act was immediately done by every news agency in the greater DC area and it was found out that I was holding them accountable for the things that they should be held accountable for um so it it became a big Ruckus but I will tell you it's because I was honest truthful and held the line on what the the standards are that I was hired by the Berkeley group and was able to help Martinsville like I did when I did thank you sir can you describe your ideal relationship between the city manager and the commission and the commissioner and City staff sir I want to thank you for that that was like a softball lob for me um after the persal thing the city council there it was very difficult for me to have trust and when you all stepped forward in December and January you didn't have to you weren't going through the election process you stood up and said I'm going to support this city and and that's why I said I could be a member of this leadership and move forward on that because you're going to have the best interests of this community at heart first and I can work with that now the relationship I'll be honest it's got to be a team and I work for you all but I have to be able to inform you and keep you a breast of the risks and I have to be able to explain things in a way that you can make a decision between two very tough things as you start looking at all the budgetary requirements of what I described very briefly that's the tip of the iceberg because you guys provide the resources so I need to be feel comfortable of bringing bad news to you all and say this is I don't have the solution yet this is the way we get the solution and I don't know what the instate resources are going to be required to do it and also very active in participating in things um so having a little bit of um leeway granted to me and going out there and doing things for the right things for the for the right reasons for the community is is really where I need some leeway and being able to do stuff but I'm I'm not going to have any problem with any one of you saying why' you do this or I saw this going on down there are you aware of it because because I I'm one person I only have two eyes and having you guys working as a team therefore and us working that way and understand we need to collaborate we need to be honest with each other and show expectations and having those discussions you know the equivalent of the comprehensive plan but you have to have a strategic plan that gets you to each St stage and being able to communicate so we can come up with a plan not only to do this next budget cycle but the couple after that so we're funding in the right direction and we don't lose money by funding something that doesn't actually help us get to our vision and so those are the things that I need I need to have that here's the standard that I we expect of you for all of these things we want you to achieve over the next year we're going to hold you accountable to that and I will therefore be able to present that Vision to not only the the staff but we helped pre present that the staff the director are participating in this and influencing those thoughts and so we're working truly as a team and you're representing the community and I I'm telling you if you want to have a a town hall meeting an open house meeting anywhere anytime I'll be there because you've got to hear it from the Citizens first but I work for you thank you sir we've got couple of minutes does anybody have any follow-up questions you would like to ask Mr Adams we appreciate your time thank you so much thank you commissioner Lorenzen would you be opposed to swapping questions with me because I think it makes more sense to end up sprad my mind thank you everybody good yes next candidate is Kevin cper good after afternoon if you'll please state your name for the record certainly uh Kevin Cowper thank you sir um we're going to give you an opportunity to introduce yourself um and then each of the Commissioners will ask you uh one question uh with any possible followup so as by means of introduction um you know we've had an opportunity to take a look at your resume um but would you please take a few minutes to explain from your perspective how your background uh makes you uniquely qualified for this this position certainly uh and uh thank you for this opportunity and I've certainly enjoyed my visit uh today in in yesterday uh so um I uh grew up in the Mobile Alabama area and went to school there went to graduate school at the University of Memphis and have spent a career working in uh Alabama and Florida uh I've uh worked uh in uh Coastal Alabama and Baldwin County the location of Gulf Shores Orange Beach Fort Morgan those kind of places uh I worked for a number of years in Pensacola Florida as community development director there uh worked extensively uh in uh Redevelopment uh in that Community uh unfortunately spent a lot of time on Hurricane recovery efforts as as well when when I was there uh from Pensacola I went to Auburn Alabama home of Auburn University and spent about 12 years in that Community as assistant city manager and Chief Operating Officer uh uh College communities have uh have their own uh unique um uh um circumstances uh not unlike uh coastal areas that experience a lot of visitors and certainly uh enjoyed my time there uh worked extensively again on uh Redevelopment opportunities downtown Redevelopment uh in in particular uh I have been been in Dothan Alabama now for 5 years uh Dothan is a a large metro area about 75,000 people in the city limits uh uh double that uh within a 15minute drive triple that within a 30 minute drive uh it is a uh commercial and medical Hub uh as well as a uh a military base uh uh right outside of the city limits and uh in Dothan I've worked extensively uh again on uh Redevelopment issues uh both downtown uh commercial Corridor Redevelopment and uh neighborhood Redevelopment as as well uh it's part of my uh uh program in Dothan I introduce what we term the love Dothan uh community development program and be happy to talk extensively about that but we don't have enough time today but uh that program uh galvanized the community uh uh uh in support of U of uh future development and um Redevelopment and uh particularly neighborhood preservation and Redevelopment um so um again my background is in planning uh spent 20 years doing planning uh I've spent uh 30 years uh in in local government uh in City management and City Planning combined and so I think that combination of management and planning expertise is what uniquely qualifies me for this position uh and in particular uh not only City Planning but I have extensive development in planning in coastal communities and uh and uh Redevelopment in coastal communities and and otherwise I have uh dealt with very large scale development very uh very successfully through the years and I've successfully uh brought Redevelopment opportunities uh to uh various downtowns that I have worked thank you sir thank you commissioner Philz hi Kevin um sir so my question I think you kind of just alluded to to it a little bit but um describe a time or example in your career that you've brought your community together um that you worked in community that you worked in uh happily that that's a a great question and I we'll go back to uh the love Dothan program uh in uh in Dothan Alabama so uh as I spent uh my first few months in in Dothan what struck me uh when I was talking to people all from all walks of life elected officials uh neighborhood residents uh most people would uh in some form in the conversation say I really do love all uh really do love do and I I love being here it's a great Community I I love it and uh as I began uh to put together uh a strategy of of thoughts uh for the uh the city commission based on my first few months there uh this theme of Love Dothan just kept coming up and coming up and so I began to read comprehensive plan strategic plans other documents that were put together and uh basically was able to syn syze uh all of that information into a love Doan program which uh addresses uh downtown Redevelopment commercial Redevelopment business and economic development neighborhood development neighborhood organization and communication uh organization of the city and uh the the customer service uh strategies for city employees and uh schools and infrastructure development and uh uh um growth management and so a lot of that stuff isn't particularly sexy uh but uh we created a program we launched the program uh in a big way we had several uh hundred people in the auditorium when we launched the program and the community uh just very much uh galvanized around the idea of Love Dothan and uh if you drive there today you'll see Billboards that that the billboard company's put up with Lov doen you'll see murals painted on the side of buildings you'll see marquee signs that display the logo you'll see baseball caps and t-shirts and uh is just a great way to bring the community to together and we would show up as City staff with uh with community volunteers from all walks of life and go to a neighborhood and spend half a day in the neighborhood cleaning up and fixing up and just working to help better the community and and uh that program in particular the cleanup program uh was just a fabulous way to connect the city uh to the neighborhood and to the residents for them to really see uh that people do care and do want to better the the community thank you sir thank you thank you sir commissioner RZ Niki hi um what are your strategies for hiring evaluating current staff measuring their performance retaining the employees and also dealing with uh managing under underperforming staff certainly so I'm a Believer in the high performing organization model I think I had some opportunity to talk to each of you about that yesterday uh that strategy um is a strategy to empower uh employees at all levels uh to be creative and be Innovative and to do their job and do their job well uh it also is a program of accountability and so I will tell employees I want you to love where you work I want you to love coming to work each and every day and I want you to be happy uh in your work and uh I find that when morale is good and employees are happy uh that they perform well and they provide the best customer service possible and in the end that's what it's about providing uh excellent customer service uh people pay for services and and and they certainly deserve the best quality services we can provide and so I have uh dealt with employees at at all levels uh and some very high- performing employees uh others that have not been able to get get on board so to speak with the program and uh you know we have trained employees uh counseled employees uh done everything that uh that we can to motivate and make sure that everybody's given an opportunity there are some that are not able to do that and in those circumstances it's usually better for them to find employment outside of uh of local government so um you know I do believe uh particularly with uh my direct reports uh department heads and the like uh there there there are business plans uh I work on a business plan program annually that is attached to uh the budget and to strategic planning docum documents and uh they are responsible for implementing uh those business plans and then they would be evaluated in terms of their success uh in what in what they have accomplished that that year thank you ma'am thank you commissional renen good evening Mr cper could you describe the ideal relationship between the city manager and the uh commission and then in your view the commission and the city staff well certainly I you know I I see uh the relationship uh between the city manager and the city commission as a partnership uh the city manager uh being the chief executive officer uh the commission being uh a board of directors so to speak and uh uh providing Direction guidance uh strategic Direction and uh Prov providing that uh to the city manager and then the city manager uh then being responsible for implementation of uh of that strategy so um for me uh city manager would be involved in all the day-to-day operations uh the um relationship between the um the the commission uh and the staff uh in my view should be one of uh one of respect in in both ways um you know the uh under the city manager form of of government generally speaking not appropriate for uh elected officials to uh give specific Direction uh to staff particularly lower level staff and uh that would be better suited coming through the city city manager uh my experience has been uh that uh certainly uh with higher level staff assistant managers uh Department directors uh a lot of times there's no need to go directly through the city manager there it's probably more expeditious uh uh for for some direct contact there uh provided that that's that's done uh uh uh respectfully and in a way that everybody uh uh knows about it certainly I would want to know about it uh only so that I could make sure that the request uh in that case was being Matt thank you yes sir commissioner Meritt sure hi um what do you perceive to be the biggest opportunities and challenges facing the city of St Pete Beach both immediately and then a little bit down the road as well well immediately uh I think you hav't uh I'm I'm seeing a number of of things uh come up um I think uh there there are some obvious um issues and opportunities uh in the community uh surrounding uh Redevelopment and infrastructure uh and um communication uh and I think um short term uh there needs to be uh should be a uh a visioning type uh effort a strategic effort amongst uh you as the elected officials uh to provide some uh specific vision and direction as to what you are looking for uh on behalf of the community and uh that um that I think uh would go a long way in communication with the staff and uh and communication uh with with the community I think that in in in my recommendation would be a very first step uh for you all to come together and and provide uh that direction uh also you have a lot of Redevelopment uh in the immediate future and and in in the in the longer future uh I I think um you need to make sure that you've got the right people in the right places to address Redevelopment uh if you are dealing with large scale Redevelopment uh then you need people in place that understand largescale Redevelopment and uh and and how to handle that and uh uh and certainly uh I I would bring a lot lot of that that expertise uh uh to the table uh longer term I think you need to be uh addressing uh some infrastructure needs um yeah some of those are pretty obvious based on the weather today of of what what can happen um and and there are probably uh other Transportation infrastructure needs as well as underground infrastructure needs uh those uh can be addressed through uh development of a capital plan uh that can be in my view a five or six-year Capital plan uh that would identify and pro prioritize and uh fund Capital um projects and and the priority again that would be your decision uh that's part of the budgeting uh process uh I do also think that you need to do some very specific planning work uh a lot of talk about the comprehensive plan uh I think you probably need to be more specific in some of your planning and do some uh Corridor specific planning some area specific planning uh I think would be uh would be would be helpful uh a picture is worth a thousand words and uh a comprehensive plan document with a lot of policy statements in it uh is difficult for a lot of people to Envision uh an area plan would give you the opportunity uh to include drawings and pictures of uh of what it is that you want and what you envision for the future and I'd certainly recommend a document like that uh to help people Envision what the future would be like I would certainly recommend uh those types of documents for you thank you yes ma'am all right I will I'll ask you two questions yes sir we'll start with the first one why are you interested in this particular position yes sir um so um as I said in in in the opening I've spent a lot of time uh in Florida and Alabama and on the coast I don't live on the coast uh today but I'm a little more than an hour away from it so I certainly spend a lot of lot of time there and uh it's certainly an environment uh that that that I enjoy so I'm looking for a a uh career opportunity uh in a community that has a high quality of life and uh you certainly uh check that box for me and I'm looking uh for a community that could use my uh experience and expertise uh I want to be somewhere where I can be of value and where I can bring something to the community and uh I I again I think you check the the box for me in that regard I think I can bring a lot to you thank you sir commissioners before I ask the final questions do you have any follow-up questions on any of previous questions all right uh so the last question is is there anything else that you would like to add anything else that you would like to for us to know uh well I'll close out if that's okay um and I appreciate I appreciate that that opportunity I appreciate the opportunity to come here and visit your wonderful community and spend spend time I was hoping for a little beach time this morning but it was a little ugly out there so that didn't quite work out for me um you know uh again uh you I've uh 30 years of uh experience in in local government uh much of it in coastal areas and uh much of it working specifically on infrastructure uh planning on strategic planning uh budgeting organizational development and most importantly linking all of those things together to create a comprehensive strategy to move uh whatever Community I've been in forward I've worked in uh some uh very uh high quality places and I have seen uh very uh high quality development and and Redevelopment and I certainly know uh how to how to handle that so I appreciate uh your time and and your courtesy and uh I certainly have enjoyed the time that I've been here and I wish you the very best in your future no matter who you select as your city manager it is uh a very important decision for you you all know that and um and I'm honored to to be here uh having the opportunity to talk to you thank you sir thank you very much sir sir hopefully you we'll still be able to sneak in some beach time ah sounds great sunsets at 8:00 tonight is it okay if I shake absolutely thank you to see thank you [Music] app I'm the assistant City attor nice to meet you as well [Applause] ready did J run the away he he said out might the door open oh they can open it they back there oh who's who's coming in next uh Jim if you'll please state your name for the record uh Jim Harriet James Harriot thank you Mr Harriet um we're going to start with a quick introduction and then each of the Commissioners will ask you one question um with possible follow-ups um and we're asking everyone the same questions so um just the first by way of introduction if you wouldn't mind taking a few minutes to just briefly explain from your perspective how your background um makes you good fit for this position sure um well let me give you a little bit more history on on me personally because I think it all laads together um I'm originally from Detroit Michigan I'm born in Deer born Michigan and raised in in what they call up there the down river area of Detroit um and when I was in my teens my father moved us down to um Fort Meers Fort Meers um Cape Coral area so we were down on the coast there I graduated high school and went to the University of Florida to study engineering and ended up sticking around for a second degree in engineering so I have a a bachelor's and a master's degree in civil engineering with the the emphasis in um the bachelor's was on structures and um Hydraulics and and Water Resources graduate school I took on transportation and transportation planning traffic operations and that's really where my career centered um I was hired as a traffic engineer in Sarasota County and gradually worked into the manager of Transportation Planning and took that up to Transportation Planning and Transit and then took over the entire transportation department on their capital projects which led to taking over the County's entire Capital Improvement program horizontal vertical above ground below ground buildings roads sewer systems storm water systems the works we pulled it all in together under one group and um LED that that group through about hundred to $150 million a year in Capital Improvements for a stretch of about six years um it was a unique unique experience um to be able to do that it also allowed me to work with the board a lot more um I was the executive director of Public Works and Capital Management Services there were six executive directors that that worked in um Sarasota County reporting up to the county manager so we were deeply involved in the operation of the government in fact our expectation as six executive directors was to understand each other's budgets and how they worked what their issues were what our concerns were and collectively as a group of six talk to the board talk to the admin Administration about how to get stuff done how to respond to the pressures of the community how to respond to the pressures of of the budget issues um and there were some if you remember the downturn in the economy we had a we had a pretty good struggle and and difficulty there um then the opportunity to move up to alatua County and I took on the deputy County manager position and was an integral part of all the different operations although my specific area was infrastructure for obvious reasons um and and Public Works growth management and and basically the built environment and and the improvements to the built environment um after seven years in alatua County I took on got a great offer and an opportunity to move over to the Consulting side and became a civil engineer consultant um so you know I had my PE through the entire time but got to use it and and work with municipalities and and County governments mostly but the the state occasionally and the University of Florida occasionally um and basically worked on the the infrastructure that those communities need and desire a lot in in North Central Florida just into the Panhandle couple down into into the maybe Orlando area just north of Orlando and a lot in Jacksonville so that brings me to here I've got a lot of experience the chance to come back to the coast the chance to work on the problems of the coast that I was familiar with years ago um it was just an opportunity I couldn't pass up and and hopefully that experience can serve you well thank you sir commissioner res ke thank okay hi how are you um what are your strategies for hiring evaluating staff um current staff measuring performance retaining employees or managing underperforming staff um let me talk about hiring Staff first and then we'll we'll kind of work through it um I've worked for over 20 years supervising and hiring people from a very small Department up to an organization um and has always used the same process or tried to educate staff that is doing the hiring um because I didn't hire every person as an executive director of Public Works for example in Sarasota County at one point I had 799 employees um usually it was around 400 there's no way you can hire 400 people it's hard enough to hire 10 um to report to you so my philosophy and my Approach was to go through a simple little process before the positions ever advertised and you sit down and you figure out what that person is what what's that position to you what's it to the organization what's that person look like in terms of what is their character how do they react how do they do things um what are you looking for the first thing that falls into my priority anytime I walk into hiring somebody is is kind of the personality the culture and their their attitude and approach to things um it it Smooths so many other things out you can teach the technical Parts if they know the technical parts that's great but if they're if they're just a bad character how do you say that um if they're just a bad character you know where I'm coming from is they could be the smartest person in the room and nobody can stand to be around them so you work with a culture um character work that into the position and then you ask and Point questions once you advertise you point questions to determine if they have that it's very um active based questioning you know give me an example of a time when and be very specific about it because if you're hiring somebody to run a counter service at a library and they have to deal with or a county counter service in a growth management sit situation The Experience they had from working at Publix or Chick-fil-A really applies you know what's an angry customer do they're the same thing that that's sit in front of you at at the city and you want the city well represented through that process um so that brings the person on board you select the best candidate through that approach um in terms of expectations we worked on on expectations and Sarasota County had them very clearly very clearly lined out we based those expectations based on the complaints you received from the community so project management for example Le um there's a whole bunch of things that going into making sure the Project's on schedule but the community always asked when's the project going to be done so we put a everybody's got a date you give me a date we're going to figure out a date to complete this project and then we're all going to hold ourselves to it so the project managers held to it the administrative assistants held to it the community services um the community outreach person that was on the team the teams built around it the legal department the procurement department they were all held to finishing that project on time that feeds into the Personnel evaluation um obviously some things are missed sometimes but once you lay all those out um everybody knows what's happening they knows what they know what's expected they're working on it as a team even mine as the executive director of that department I had those requirements so when I did my evaluation with my supervisor the administrator and Deputy County Administrator in Sarasota County I was reporting on the same thing things the employees were reporting on to me um discipline mistakes happen they're real we all make them they'll happen they shouldn't be fatal staff shouldn't feel like they've you they've lost their job over a mistake there are critical mistakes that likely turn into um we'll say fireable offenses but those are usually pretty black and white and they're pretty damaging in the process if you make a mistake and you're remorseful over it and go wow I just didn't know or I made a judgment call and it failed on me you know own up to it and we'll correct it we'll we'll talk it through and and we'll move on to the next step which is usually you know fixing that problem and moving on to the next one I think it builds a culture of of a solid foundation so people can think clearly government has that aspect of you've got people out in the field all the time all day today I was driving around you know down into passag Grill and stuff like that and you were there were your workers out there you want them to be free and comfortable to make a decision in the field that they feels right and that they're going to be backed by it and if it's wrong okay we'll fix it and we'll move on to the next step so hope that answers that question thank you sir commissioner renson yeah good evening Mr haret good to see you again um can you describe your ideal relationship between this city manager and the commission and then the commission and the uh staff City staff um and they are different in my opinion there's five of you that can't speak together outside of this room and and many times the public doesn't realiz realize that so as the manager I can't go through and pull you know oh you're thinking this way and you're thinking this way and you're thinking this way my um job as the manager would be to look and make sure you all have the same information going forward so so if if one of you goes to staff and says hey I need a piece of information my expectation would be that staff provides it and four more copies for the for the ones that didn't ask um that's just pretty much a standard procedure if one of you needs it you all need it because you're a collective body and that's how I look into that group I would obviously would meet with you oneon-one at at times and in on a regular basis and talk about issues and it would probably be a pretty pretty Frank discussion but the moment that turns from one to one and it turns into a body staff myself and staff should provide everything you need to make that decision and when you make the decision we move on to the next step the manager doesn't have a vote it's not a sixth commissioner up there um the manager is there to carry out your directives to carry out your policies I may personally have an opinion one way or the other but I've never let that opinion out or show on on a public basis and I think that's the message that gets carried down to staff so once you set a policy once you set a budget in a Direction that's how it's carried through staff and maintained through staff and then we just keep working towards the the objectives you have out there and then part two that was the commission toward your city staff that relationship um some commissions some manag might come through and go you know I speak to staff that is true in terms of an or chart you know you have just a couple of employees really and then the manager has a group of employees the staff it's incredibly inefficient in government to say everything's got to come through me I've got to know everything it's not going to work if that's the arrangement we set up my recommendation would always be you have open access to staff you know who the Public Works person is you saw the truck you might have seen them out on the street you give them a call and say hey I need help with something that would then my expectation to staff would be to convey that convey that back up the ladder make sure I know because I don't want to walk into a meeting with you and and not know something they know from talking to you but I also don't want to close the door for your conversations with staff if you've got a question give them a call if you've got a request I would say run it through the manager copy the manager and there's a reason why you and the public may not know this Nuance you individually can't direct staff but if you have a request and it's a request that any citizen in this city would ask and we would go ahead and check for example hey looks like there's a big pothole out on some street can you come out and check that if you called staff if you called somebody in public works to go out and do that my expectation would they would do it because they would do it for all 8,500 residents you're a resident also and that's the differentiation if it was hey would you run this report or would you you do this analysis of this that might take some staff time run that through the manager's office I'll get it down there if it's a financial issue attached to it in other words if it's such a report that it takes hours to do I might need to bring it back to the rest of you and say we're going to spend money on this to to comply with this request um do you have a problem with that thank you commissioner Meritt hi hi um what do you perceive as the biggest opportunities and challenges facing the city of St Pete Beach both immediately and then a little bit down the road I think your biggest opportunity immediately um or your biggest challenge immediately is is the the Redevelopment items that are going on you've got a I mean within few days you're going to hear another another one come before you um huge challenge because what came back out of the public public meetings and the discussions was this kind of difference of opinion that's out there on on how this is happening is it happening the way it should um the biggest opportunity let me back up still on the challenge side and I've said this to some of you um you we can choose as a community to redevelop and what that looks like there may just by geography and where we're at there may be a point in time where it's chosen for you um Fort Meers Beach was kind of a happy little sleepy fishing Village type thing it was a tourist destination to a certain extent um I hung out there when I was a teenager um it was what it was and they kind of said we're going to stay the same way and we're we don't want to change we don't want anything to be different we don't want highrises or anything nobody's talking about that now because none of it's there I mean it was a September a while back that all of it kind of got taken care of and I'm sure that coming right out of the chute right after the storm there were people knocking on the door saying what are we doing what are we going to do next that's a challenge on the flip side you have a lot of interest in this community that's a huge opportunity also that Redevelopment there's a lot of people coming in wanting to do something in St Pete Beach um how do we do that what's important to the community how does the community look at all of that it's easy to say never change and I have to admit I've probably said it as you know a few times too um but it happens I mean changes every second of every day every minute everything changes so um dealing with that planning for that I think it's many more it's much more important to um do it on your schedule without the pressure of somebody you know pushing you through the process the second Big Challenge you have is is water being in the wrong place um I've washed my car from the bottom up today after the storm came through I made it a point to get out there and headed down to passag grill and got to a couple points and went do I have a big enough vehicle to get through here um I'm visited some other streets where it was obvious that it looked like public works or somebody had been out there and kind of ConEd off areas that had flooded getting a tackle on that the resiliency and with with the sea water is high I got to witness I think I was talking I got to witness out there you know the the top of the seaw wall and the top of the ocean right below it and I say ocean you know you know seriously because there's a lot of water coming in from behind that um those are the two things that jump out that Redevelopment and and dealing with that infrastructure I wish I had a solution for you and could say you know what here's a book page 52 67 and 38 will solve all your problems it's going to be a little bit more difficult than that thanks so followup would you be able to give us an example or two from your past experience and how you've dealt either with water intrusion or development sure um one of the projects that my team did in in St Armen Circle um down in Sarasota County um St arms is a bowl it's low built by John Ringling you can tell it was always that way because if you've ever been there everything either ramps into the stores or steps up into the stores um they had a serious problem with it high tide and this was before anybody started talking about these King tides and such at high tide and a storm combined together they couldn't get the water out of the bowl it was in a you know this little saucer the water couldn't get out so we did a a project where we moved the water to a holding place let the tides drop a little bit and then we pump the water back out into the bay using duck bill baffles um over the outfalls so the the baffles would close and sit when the pumps kicked on those baffles would open up and push the water out and it was fine as long as we maintained positive pressure and then they would um you know you would drop the pumps off and the P the um baffles would close back up and hold the seawater out it was a solution for St Armen it worked um a lot of math and Engineering go into that you know where's the rise and fall how far out are you pumping it can you maintain the head pressure to get through the the baffle all of that is a factor um but quite frankly it's just an engineering problem at that point um that may be a solution that works um I noticed some of the flooding areas in passing gril looks like a bowl you know and it in in um alatua County we had some of that similar situation very hilly country the low areas were collecting water and we knew if we got it over the top of the hill it could drain into a sink or a natural Waterway so the Sol ution there very low cost we hooked up automatic pumps and it just the pumps kick on when the water comes up to a certain level and pumps the water to the other side of the hill and and that's it you run the pump line or the the the outfall line off the pump through the drainage system and and um just move the water that way very simple very costeffective solution does it accomplish what you're looking for for every storm maybe not um in elat County some of the big major storms those 100-year storms that you hear about those aren't fixed by the pump but the 50e is and the 25 year is those weren't fix those weren't a problem before um we also worked on some beach renourishment projects that kind of you know gave the beach back um in in um Sarasota County so gives you a few examples thank you m fils hi Jim welcome back um my question is could you just describe a time or example in your career uh that you've brought your community together um in charge of Capital Management Services we had we had several projects that went went through one of them was was the Redevelopment and and kind of recreation and reimaging of cesta beach if you're you're familiar with with the beach down there beautiful beach is bounced around number one or number two in the world probably competing with st P Beach so um some people just didn't want it different other people's other you know other people wanted something brand new and something remarkable there was always the pressure of the community the beach was busy enough before we ever thought about doing anything with it um why do it any better and allow more people you know provoke more interest in people to coming down um it involved a lot of community meetings and a lot of discussion with the community of what the expectations were iteration after iteration after iteration ironing things out um that was one example probably a smaller example the larger example was in um also in Sarasota County it was called the Sarasota 2050 plan if you're familiar with Sarasota you drive down the interstate you look West towards the coast and it's all developed you looked East and it's Rural and largely undeveloped at least it was back about 20 years ago that was by Design they have an urban service boundary and urban services are provided west of the interstate rural was supposed to be east of the interstate but there was a huge P pressure to redo east of the interstate um I worked on the transportation element of that a lot of modeling of what this if it were developed what it would be and what it would do um but attended probably a meeting a week for two years a public meeting and a public discussion pieces were pulled out and discussed with with the community and and consensus trying to to work out was everybody happy at the end absolutely not um was everybody angry at the end not so much they Everybody Was Heard it wasn't perfect I doubt everybody anybody thought it was perfect the developers most certainly didn't think it was perfect um I can tell you one of the things that came straight out of that plan was was the the preservation of the environmental lands in the county and the developers through that process at the end if they develop they're required to dedicate that land to the county at the start the moment they submit an application all that environmental land becomes the counties um and then you start talking about the pasture lands and what happens there um it was a guiding document comprehensive plan took about two years to um work through and that time was good um it allowed a lot of people to talk it allowed it allowed the commission and and the community to say hey we we're still not ready with that we don't like that part okay let's have another meeting on it took patience from the development Community too they had to wait and and kind of um settle down as we went through that so um two examples we were required to do public meetings on just about everything in road projects um especially um did a lot of road projects and my tactic on the road project was is kind of walk in with an aerial you can see graphically picture aerial of the of the um Corridor but there were no lines on it and people would walk in going well yeah this is the street as it looks today what are you doing well what do you what would you like to see I know what I need to do from a transportation standpoint but what would you like to see and they would help design it and provide the feedback um to the design team that we then issued to a a design contract for um to complete the design on it we did have one Corridor that was started out in in the 90s as a six Lane Corridor right through the heart of the community um the community asked that it be changed to two four lanes two lanes in each Direction and when we went through that public process they talked more about walking and biking than traffic and it turned into a two-lane Corridor so that road is now one of the most popular walking corridors a two-lane arterial that was originally planned in modeled to be six Lanes nobody's suffering the community moves around it's one of the favorite corridors in the final years I had in in Sarasota that when we would do another project they would everybody would point to that particular corar and say we want one like that um so that was another way you we we brought the community in and talked through it and and made big adjustments to what we were doing thank you thank you sir why you interested in this position in particular the challenges that are out there um you know by Nature I tend to be a a a problem solver I think it comes with an engineering degree or an engineering mindset um you know the castal community the issues that castal communities are dealing with um and chance the chance to lead a nice size organization that that is um tuned into those concerns the fact that it's a Beach Community it's just a special place and it's and it's always a a pleasure and an honor to be involved in projects that are on the the beach side of the Gulf Coast the north Gulf Coast in through the bend is all Rocky and not much fun to swim in but the southwest side of the coast is is beautiful and gorgeous and it's just a great chance and a great opportunity to be be a part of that um the storm water issue is Big it's the same thing up and down the coast um but it would be it would sure be fun you know it would sure be fun to um solve that problem and why can't St Pete Beach be the community that leads the state and says hey we figured this out and and here's what we're doing um that's a great opportunity and then in conclusion is there anything that you would like to add anything else you would like to say or clarify or I don't think so we've had a lot of discussions over a couple of days um you it's everybody to a te you know I've been been through the chamber I've quizzed people at the grocery store I've been down here several times everybody to a te says it's a great Community it's really cool it's really neat it's really laidback um that's exciting um that everybody thinks that nobody has ever nobody has said you know careful about St Pete Beach that's not out there at all um that's exciting that's interesting um it's it's been honor and a pleasure to be able to come down and talk to you about it and and be in front of you so I appreciate that thank you sir we appreciate you coming in thank you request a quick recess sure let's uh let Renee know Renee we're going to take a quick recess to 540 thank you for e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e if you please state your name for the record Michel Max [Music] are we're going to get demonetized because of copyright infringement on our YouTube channel for the city all right if you uh please state your name for the record one more time m music thank you Mah um we're going to ask you um the same five questions we've asked all the other candidates um but by way of introduction if you can please take a few minutes just to kind of explain from your perspective how you background makes you a good candidate for this position sure um yeah I um um I've kind of grown up in the business my father was a city manager um went to the University of Florida for my undergraduate degree USF for my masters and and then moved on to Belair was my first job I was the assistant and then the assistant to actually reverse that um in Bel for 2 years and then uh I got a job as the uh Town manager uh in year three and I was the town manager for about 11 years city of about 4,000 people and about uh about 75 full-time employees about 100 total um so a little smaller than St Pete Beach but uh but it was a full service Community had had everything but but basically fire and Wastewater um in 2017 I was recruited by Bill Horn the former manager of Clearwater to come over and be his assistant Town manager city manager um and I did that uh until January of this year uh I've served in a couple different roles there one is the assistant uh city manager uh also I was the interim City Manager for a period and then uh I finished up as the chief Innovation officer um so I've got um experience in both a larger city of Clearwater uh and then a little smaller in Belair and I think uh I think that diversity of experience um puts me in a good position to be successful thank you commissioner renen good evening good to see you um can you describe your ideal relationship between uh city manager and the commission and part two of that between the commission and the city staff the Commissioners and the city staff sure I think U I think communication is is of course key with um with the city manager and the commission I mean a big part of what we have to do and I think I've mentioned to all of you um that you know I I kind of look at it from three perspectives um uh I my expectation of you as Commissioners right is that um you're going to take your own personal perspective uh whatever the professional staff perspective is and then the perspective of those in the community and mash that all together and make the best decision you can uh but a big part of that is making sure that you understand what our professional staff opinion is um so uh we you know I think that takes constant communication and and you know this is not your full-time job in many situations I'm sure um and uh you know that requires us to to help educate you all on you know some of the impacts of what's going on so it can't just be this is the this here the three choices and we need to provide some why that along with that as well and I think that really helps um but communication certainly key um and the second part of that was no problem that would be between the uh Commissioners and your city staff sure yeah um you know I think uh uh I think that's something that um you sort of build over time um you know and I'm not obviously I'm not familiar with with how you all interact with City staff now I can tell you in in U uh in belir uh you know the Commissioners had a had a you know they had the ability to speak to our department directors uh I just asked for them to make sure that they told me what you know that they were going to be speaking to a department director and if there was an issue I'd let them know uh and vice versa the department directors would Express uh to me hey commissioner come and talk to me about this but but we created some um you know guideposts around that right I mean we didn't want it to be uh we didn't want to put the Commissioners in a in a situation where maybe they said something that they shouldn't and we didn't want staff in a position where they felt like they were being directed by the commission so um we did lay some ground rules on what kind of conversations they should be having uh with uh with the staff and they really surround um getting informed about various issues in the community um so that was really our Focus thank you thank you yeah commiss May sure hi um could you uh could you let us know what you think are the biggest opportunities and threats that face St Pete Beach both immediately and then a little ways down the road as well sure yeah I mean I think um from an opportunity perspective um you know there is obviously there is um um there's some development issues going on now I think um having some good conversation continuing some good conversation about those things uh about those development projects is important um those things uh uh you know over the next few years are going to help help shape the um the the finances for the city but also the impacts to the residents so um you know it that can sometimes be a threat it depends on the perspective you're looking at it from but uh but it's a real opportunity too to try to try make whatever the right thing is right to try to drive us towards that thing um I think uh uh on the staff side you know I know there's been some turnover over the last uh last few years it gives us a chance to to to reset um and and try to figure out what uh what matters to us and and how we can best build a structure that that can last for you know decades right we it's all about trying to um trying to build a foundation uh that we can U you sort of be successful on and that really takes uh you know good alignment with the staff good communication with the commission thanks commissioner filz yeah I'm M um my question is could you describe a time or an example in your career that uh you've brought your community together um sure you know I mean uh let me think here uh how about uh in Bel Air you know I mean I think and I think it was really surrounding our golf course that we uh we purchased as part of the Belleview builtmore Hotel Redevelopment um you know that Redevelopment uh was was you know was very contentious uh related to historic building um and you know it was a tough probably six seven years that we went through that that process with all the lawsuits and those sorts of things um but but really uh the opportunity that came out of that um that whole process was us being able to capture some green space with in the community and and save another element of uh another part of the of the city uh from being U you having some development that was was not something the community wanted uh so we were able to preserve the green space and uh um and put a conservation easement on there City purchased the property uh and uh you know it it required us to to reach out to all the residents in the area around the golf course and you know throughout the community to you know see if that was the thing that that that development element was something that they wanted us to do or not wanted to do um and so we uh we tried to coales around that um came up with some great projects that we uh we discussed related to storm water and and whether or not we could turn it into a um like a almost a recreational facility and yet also capture storm water cancel out a number of different projects that we had uh Downstream for stormm water uh by just reversing the flow back to the golf course so we had a lot of these conversations about you know kind of cool ideas that we might be able to accomplish um with this property what ended up happening really was that it was a redeveloped as a golf course but it remained green space but those conversations really excited a lot of people I think in in the community and uh really people really came together on it thank you y commissioner Riki hi Micah hello what are your strategies for hiring evaluating staff um measuring their performance retaining them and then also um managing underperforming staff yeah I mean I think um you know mostly the the hiring a staff element would would really be the department directors that that level I think below that I would really um ask the the whatever the respective director of that area to to really take the lead on that um but I mean I think all those things that you talked about really come down to um to creating some alignment about what what what matters to us uh on a day-to-day basis on a long-term basis really what values we have as a city uh from the employees right I mean what and they exist already but what what do they have from a value perspective what are the values of our staff and what areas do we really want to um sort of drive towards right what are our aspirational values um and and those things that are um that really are um you know you can't be here if you don't have them things like ethics and integrity those things so I mean I think it's important on the front end of uh whoever takes this position for U for us to coales around uh what those things are that are important and have some good alignment about it and then base the hiring off of those things right we ought to be hiring people that meet those those elements those values um uh and you know I mean I think as it relates to retaining I you know obviously there's various things that um can be done from a compensation perspective if things are if we're low on something right we need to continue to look at benefits and and compensation and see where we are uh on the totem pole there but um but another big part of retention is is creating an environment for staff where um you know it's collaborative and they feel like they're making a difference right and like whatever they're saying matters and they're involved in the conversation and uh you know I think we have a real opportunity to be able to do that here at sa P Beach thank you Commissioners any of you have any follow-up questions before I ask the closing questions okay so what what particularly um makes you interested in taking this position yeah I mean I is a local position obviously so that is helpful to me um you know uh but uh but really you know it's the opportunity you know I mean I you know at least read in the paper about um the different challenges in St Pete Beach or at least perceived challenges in St Pete Beach and there's a lot of great opportunity there to um to I think rebuild uh rebuild the staff uh rebuild some of the culture and the organization and and try to try to take it to the next level um so those are the things that really kind of excite me when I'm you know when I'm looking at uh different positions right that that employee element the the culture really driving towards um you know changing how people experience work um not just um you know not just fixing a road or or dealing with a a development issue but really what you know how do we build that structure how do you build that foundation and it seems like there's a good opportunity to do that here thank you and then in closing is there anything else that um you would like to add anything else that you would like us to know anything you like to this is your free-for-all yeah I mean I guess I'm you know the if I had a question uh for each of you I mean it would be just where do you where would you like to see St Pete Beach just in the next six months or so and is there is there a vision that you will have of where we need to try to be by let's say October 1 start of the fiscal year sure we do might not be the you can pass it's okay might not be the best setting for it it might be a long answer we might be here for a few hours fair enough I were correct no I don't have anything outside of outside of that then no thank you Micah y I appreciate it all right very good thank you thank you yeah if you'll please state your name for the record good evening mayor Commissioners I'm Fran robustelli good to see you again friend thank you good to see you all so we're we're each have one question for you um same question we've asked all the other applicants um but before we get to the questions I want to give you an opportunity to just um in your own words kind of explain as to you know why you think You' be good fit um for this position okay thank you so maybe I'll start with providing a little bit of background because that sets a good foundation for what I may be able to help here um bring here to serve this community so I pretty much have served my entire professional career since college graduation in public service I graduated from University of South Florida with a bachelor's in biology and I have a master's in public affairs from the University of Missouri um that was with a concentration in public administration I have spent um about five years in City management um and about uh six years in as assistant city manager and prior to that as a human resource director and human resources manager for various sizes of organizations um my first 10 years was in human resources and a special district that is similar size to the city about 120 employees so close to uh What uh you have here and uh the last uh few years I've been in cities ranging from uh 5,000 residents to 160,000 residents so I have a broad background um I would describe myself now with the a lot of expertise in Human Resources but also a generalist in all of City management uh the cities I have served have had um very complex issues in land use development um climate sustainability uh Financial issues uh managed one of the largest cities through a recession uh so I have a lot of experience in labor relations and working with employees on um benefits and compensation and um have worked um currently in my current uh City in San Leandro we are working through some major development that is also challenging for the community so very similar to some of the things you're dealing with uh that uh concerns are raised around development and um how it's how it's done and um and how we approach it with the community so I'll stop there and maybe try to weave some more of my background into your other questions thank you commissioner May up oh back to me there we go hi hi there um so in uh in in a brief synopsis of a big question um could you let us know what you perceived to be our biggest opportunities and threats for St Pete Beach both immediately and then a little ways down the road yes absolutely so a lot of it has been helpful because I've been able to talk to all of you in the community so what's surfacing for me is uh you definitely have some infrastructure challenges You're Not Alone um there are I don't think there's a city probably in the US that doesn't have these challenges and um so really looking at not only what the immediate needs are and whether you're prioritizing correctly in your Capital Improvement plan but also looking longer term do you have um do you have a proper inventory do you have the studies you need to actually make the right decisions and how is the commission prioritizing uh the infrastructure of the city uh and all of that with feedback from the public and what are you hearing from from your community that they want you to focus on um also it's um you definitely have some internal organizational challenges that I think uh need some investment in your people um I have heard from um your own department head team and you all with uh you know wanting to increase morale uh and I have uh a lot of experience and examples in in U prior organizations of uh managing team teams creating high performance teams whether they're uh existing employees whether we're promoting employees into new positions and how to invest in that Career Development and professional development for them as well as putting in systems where you can actually measure it improve morale and I have a a proven track record of doing that and I would uh just highlight it's one of my passions it's why I wanted to be a city manager because what's happening on the outside is really a symptom of What's Happen happening on the inside and so if you don't fix the inside of the house your services will suffer your approach to the community will suffer your customer service will suffer and so I'm I'm really a big proponent of making sure that the inside of the house is properly supported resourced and invested in and then um so infrastructure I think organization and then the last thing that's standing out to me is really Communications and there's a lot of opportunity here to communicate better with your public and the residents that live here and really helping them um understand the complexity of the issues you're dealing with uh how you're pushing out information and not only just on the key projects that you're working on now but what are the projects that are coming down the road in a few years several years um and and making sure that they see what the city's doing and what their taxes are paying for and the other thing is there's so many services that you all offer that the community doesn't um may not understand the complexity I I like to use Wastewater as an example um but there's a lot that goes behind delivering that service and so it's highlighting not only for the public but the employees feel good when they are when their experiences of providing service to the P public are shared with the public um I have extensive experience in expanding communication and Outreach with the community um in social media platforms print um in person community meetings and really going to the community where they are so that you can connect with them and not making it so that they have to come to City Hall so th that would be the three top things I that stand out to me spending the last couple days here perfect thank you thank you commissioner Philz Hi friend welcome back hi thank you um so my question is can you describe a time or an example in your career that you've brought your community together yes so recently in the current Community I am we've had um we had a significant um incident uh with police and a shooting that uh was actually ended up uh we had a high school it was a high school graduate that ended up homeless and ended up um dying from this police shooting and so uh this all happened during the George Floyd National incident and we had a RI in the town and so the community went through a very very extensive uh grieving and healing period And so um I actually inherited all of that um about six months after it happened and one of the things the council um had explained to me was they wanted to go through really that Community healing how do we do that and so my first step was to find out um where were the key leaders in the community that were were leading the charge behind what change they wanted to see based on the events that had happened in the community and so um took some time to get to know each one of those there I I always say there are Community leaders in the shadows and those are the ones that are really organizing and getting people together around issues of concern no matter what the concern is but the key is that you understand those leaders and you and you work with them personally um connecting the we call a city council in California so but working with the commission uh to connect uh the the the council or commission are a really good resource for your city manager to understand because you're closest to the community but the city manager also needs to understand the issues so that they can help advise the commission on the more technical aspects that may be going on so bringing together the those Community leaders having um Community meetings around the issues uh we had an organized group that came together to uh work on some reform and so we worked behind the scenes with this this team of community members to say what what would you like to see what are your concerns how do we do this reform and the the beauty to that is so we bring we ended up bringing an ordinance forward with some um police oversight and the more you're able to connect with the people as you're planning to present things things to the elected body to make decisions um and you're really working with them and we didn't agree on everything but you explained why I can't do that or um there were things they wanted that went against our Charter and we just you know you're not going to be able to do this but we can make that happen and by the time we got to the council we had a smooth um presentation and and Adoption of the ordinance and that's what you want to try to do by the time you get to this space you have really done some significant Outreach and people understand all the Nu nuances of why you may or may not be able to do things thank you thank you commissioner Riki good evening um what are your strategies for hiring evaluating staff um measuring performance retaining the employees and also managing underperforming staff okay I will start with um hiring so I'm a big proponent that people you not only do you need to brand your city for your community because that creates the culture and values of your community but you also have to Brand your organization and people I always say people leave their supervisor they don't leave an organization and so um it's really in in imperative that the leadership in your in your organization is strong and that people want to come work for them and in order to do that you have to Brand the culture of the organization so I've spent a lot of time in this area of what do we represent as an organization inside um what do we value as employees and setting that vision for the organization is going to be really important to get that employment brand out there um and and then you need to tell people what it is and so we've done some really creative things um in even our brochures of talking about some of the fun things we do or what do we value or what can you expect from Career Development and so uh that will attract people that want to come and see what what are what is what am I going to get out of this employment experience because it is it's a two-way relationship as far as Performance Management I have extensive experience in this space um I am uh a proponent of high feedback um accountability I would say I have high standards but I also will highly resource people um and the key to Performance Management is that you're open honest transparent and you provide employees a pathway and whether it's a pathway um you need to understand where they where they're at and what they need to succeed um you need to set a path or a vision of where you want to take the organization because some people will opt out if the leader sets and says this is where we're going these are the expectations and I this has happened everywhere I've gone you'll have someone somebody will opt out and say I don't want to go I don't want to get on that bus okay but as long as you're clear with people I I like to give people options to make choices for themselves and as long as you're clear and setting those expectations and really communicating regularly giving feedback regularly in real time not waiting for the annual performance evaluation and all year you say everything is great and then all of a sudden you surprise them and say well it really wasn't and remember that time eight months ago that's demoralizing and so I'm just a very big proponent high expectations in this space that people know what's expected um what the consequences if if it doesn't get delivered and also creating a very safe space so people can also give feedback up um it's it's really hard in the top spot to get feedback up I work really hard to create that safe space you've got to tell me what you need from me and what I what I may be doing that may be hindering you from being successful did I answer all five of those points okay I think you missed the last one oh what was the last one underperforming staff so underperforming staff um when you're underperforming if you work for me you will know you're underperforming you will not have to guess so um I'm really key on letting people know that and you don't have to to wait till the annual evaluation it just has to be real time like this is the deficiency this is what we need to fix um if I'm at a point in underperformance I'm now documenting and I'm letting people know I'm not just talking anymore and now and I will let them know I'm going to document this because I want to make sure we're very clear because the last few conversations haven't actually we're not communicating you know if I'm asking you to do a and you keep doing B I'll take responsibility for some of that communication and so when I move into underperformance I am documenting I let people know I hate surprising people you know there's nothing worse than you have a conversation and then you get an email from somebody like that's not what she said so I'm very very mindful that people know um what I'm doing and what and how I want to help them be successful um if I have a deficiency I'm working very hard to find out too what they need how can I help you because everyone doesn't work the same and so it's really trying to figure out how do you help that person be successful and give them the tools that they need and at some point I've had people where they're like I just can't do this job you I don't like this job and so at that point you're like I will help you find where you fit and I've I've been successful in redeploying people and some elsewhere in the organization or even helping them move on to another position because I'm very passionate about this topic because we spend more time working than we do with our families and I don't want people to be miserable like it's not okay for you to come to work and be unhappy and have a bad attitude like the Baseline expectation is you show up and you're super excited to be here because you spend more of your life here and and you deserve it and and we deserve that too thank you thank you commissioner Brenson well sorry you're not getting to see some good Florida weather but at least we don't have earthquakes right I was super excited about the storm today that's I drove through the neighborhoods I got to see all the I call puddles um so uh question for you is uh how would you describe your ideal relationship between you and the city commission part two would be between the City commissioners and your staff that work for you so um first I'll start with the commission and I seek to build a relationship of trust first um I also want you all to know that I'm never going to surprise you and I don't want to be surprised so really opening that communication um that's why I mentioned before you know having a city manager out in the community you can't be everywhere all the time and so those are even some of the things that I like to tell my commission if I hear something I'm like oh this might be a pinch point or this might be something that certain people are upset about so just to prepare you so you're not surprise when you're in a public meeting that um you may have uh various challenges or questions you're going to want to ask staff um I do like to meet regularly with the commission uh I try to go to where you're at I have uh currently council members that like to meet weekly some like to meet every other week some like to meet in person some like zoom and so I just try to be really flexible I know that some of you have full-time jobs on top of this volunteer job that you're you're uh doing so Grace um graciously for your community and so I really try to to help you um have me accessible but also in your space so that you're not um overly strained um I I'm pretty much uh very available I'm I make myself um you know you're you you would become my top five on my answer the phone list um so just being available and and knowing if I'm not available when can I be available to you and um so that just to me that's open transparent communication and really making sure that trust is always in place so that we can really work through anything as far as staff in the commission um I the the way I've managed um is that I really like my directors to have access to I like you to have access to my directors um and they just keep me informed so I try to give that Latitude so that it's easier for you all to get information if you need it quickly but and then if if it's in person my directors would know they're letting me know hey this is an issue or I had this question and one that is so that we can all be on the same page two I'm trying to manage workload for the directors to make sure that you know they're not getting 20 requests from one commissioner and and then they're confused by what the priority is so just keeping me in the loop of yep that's our priority keep going or nope it's not let me talk to the commissioner and see if we can renegotiate some of the expectations that they're asking for um I do try to uh uh Shield staff Beyond directors from the electeds because they can feel pressured to do things that maybe um are not what their assignment was from their supervisor and so just keeping that really nice line of communication and everyone knows the line of communication and that we're all kind of working together to make sure that information flowing smoothly um and then it doesn't put the employees in an awkward situation because they want to make you happy and so they're going to just naturally if you ask them to do something uh even if you inadvertently do it they're going to do it and so it's just helping them not feel that pressure and let the directors manage that workload so they're not feeling like they're running all over the place response thank you thank you Commissioners do you have any follow-up questions before I the final two all right um last question before closing is um why are you interested in this position in particular thank you um I know some people have been like why is this person from California interested in this little small Beach town in Florida on the Gulf Coast well um I actually grew up in uh Lakeland Florida born and raised there and I uh mentioned I did my undergrad in USF so spent a lot of time as a young adult on the Gulf side of the beach world and including St Pete Beach and um my uh husband convinced me to go back to California in our early 20s he was from there and so we've raised our we have three boys we've raised them and um it wasn't a matter of um when if we come back to Florida it was really when are we going to come back and and um I wasn't actually looking to leave my current organization I love it I love my team it'll be very difficult to leave if that's the direction we end up going but um I got uh re Renee reached out to me through her recruitment firm and I never get East Coast uh brochures so I thought this must be some sort of fate and was I looking at this exact time no but I do know that these opportunities are very rare um you're at a a great point point in your um history of the city and where it goes in the next decades several decades um and that is exciting to me and so that was I just decided you know it's too much of a alignment of the Stars to not at least explore whether this was a good fit and my leadership um skills were a good match for you to move your city forward thank you so in conclusion is there anything else that you would like to say or for us to know you have open floor oh thank you well I just want to first thank you all I know this has been a very um involved process but it can I can tell that you really care about um who you select and you should um the selection of your city manager um will be key to how you move forward and the leadership that you need and um I would say that I think I bring to you top tier a plus leadership skills and it doesn't matter whether um what your area of expertise in it you have a lot of complex issues to work and navigate through and so I would just offer that if you look at hiring someone who has who is highly skilled in um leading an organization creating the process you need to then get the outcomes you want in the community um moving that culture change in a positive direction that I think you're going to get the best results and a good leader is going to know where to put the top talent to get the outcome you want whether it's in your Capital program whether it's in your streets whether it's in CA level rise all of those things um it matters who's at the top not what their technical expertise is but how good they are at bringing people together collaborating and communicating so I just want to that I think I bring some of those skills um in in to this role I would love to come serve this community and work with you all I've enjoyed getting to know you each of you and I I know even you're in flux and I want to maybe leave you with I you're a lot of you are new I have experience in managing newer councils and I think um commissions and I think that's important because you're going to need an experience city manager to help make sure that you all have the technical background that you're going to need to move forward and I would love to offer you that expertise so thank you very much and um Good Luck thank you friend okay um I think what we could do is if we each want to fill out our interview form for today give that to Renee and then recess and come back at 6:30 and then Rene will have 15 10 15 minutes to kind of do a tally um and then you can if you want to come back then and just give us a summary of what what it looks like yep sure how does that sound thank you then we'll talk about it obviously yes and then we'll deliberate and see where we go from here great so let's oops e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e grene if you're ready or if you need another minute that's all right too two minutes all right so I mean we can have some discussion I will say this is again I'm speaking for myself not for the rest of everyone here but um Rene turned out to be somewhat of a prophet she warned us that worst case scenario we might have more than one good candidate and that there might be a tough decision ahead and um I can I can certainly see how that's that's a possibility here yeah I agree I um I think Renee did a terrific job with the candidates it's easy to say oh there's no bad candidate I like them all for different reasons but that is the truth um it's hard and it's hard to do actually worked in recruitment a little bit in New York City and it's it's hard to do um but I'm EXC I've been excited to be a part of the process I think it's gone really well um so I thank Renee I thank City staff I I think it's been a really good process last couple days yep thank you thank you mayor and Commissioners for all those kind comments it's been a process for sure I know I've put you through a lot the last few days and um I think we've got to where we need to be I think um to to um your credit um we've gotten through a lot you had to process a lot of information meet a lot of nice people have a lot of conversations but I I think um we've managed to to um find some excellent candidates again I feel good about the candidates that were recommended I felt everyone need deserved to be at the interview table here in s p Beach so thank you for the um for for for the opportunity to work with you and um for being so such gracious host quite frankly the community was to our candidates lately I really appreciate that um so we still have some work to do um the the goal tonight is if you're so inclined that we would come up we would discuss candidates we would discuss the rankings I've I've tallied and rallied in various ways these numbers um and um and then based on just conversations of discussing candidates and where we lie in in our ratings uh we we decide who our top candidates is maybe we have a top two candidates um that are real close or maybe even um and and take time to talk about candids kind of why we land where we do I think that's important um I never expect in this case um I never expect to have a - on a single candidate because there's just too much to take in so I think it's going to Warrant some explanation and some discussion about candidates quite frankly um that's helpful sometimes and just seeing if we can come to a consensus um I often ask what no matter where we start uh when we finish and we've decided on a particular candidate to move forward that's where we get that we perhaps take a vote and I don't call it a courtesy vote I call it a um a support vote quite frankly for whoever the person is that we move forward to start discussions with about uh an agreement so tonight we're just trying to narrow it down see if we have a final candidate that we're interested in moving forward we still have some yardage to go we still have to negotiate terms we still have to come to an agreement we still have to have a contract and involve uh the attorney in in setting up a contract and things like that but this is the start of that process we're involved in that and we'll move it forward as we go so I'll talk about that a little bit later um when discussing candidates and coming up with a decision you know we we may decide that we like two of them so much that we're want to start negotiations with a particular candidate and if we cannot come to terms with that candidate we did like our our second choice if you will uh sometimes it's just a hair difference and um if we can't come to agreement with one candidate we would want to pursue another one we have several good candidates here and so sometimes that's exactly um what happen something I will ask for later U mayor is uh for you to discuss a point of contact for negotiation with candidates sometimes that's the mayor sometimes it's the mayor and the attorney sometimes it's the outgoing city manager interim city manager so that's something that we'll talk about tonight going forward um and then I'll also mention after we discuss candidates the items that are typically included in an agreement so so if there's a need for discussion tonight about any of those items we can do that otherwise I just want you to be aware of some things that you may see in an offer to a candidate so that said mayor I have um I have tallied the the um the ranking sheets from yesterday and the ones from tonight so I'm going to share um overall how those came out so you kind of know where we stand um so just keep in mind that the lower the number the better because literally if they were ranked number one on the sheet I gave them one point if they were two I gave them two so um our group for um yesterday uh for the one-on ones um our total and I'll start from the lowest number first which would be the most the highest ranking candidate um uh is Fran robustelli um with um eight points I'll do a point system here um the next candidate is Kevin cper with 11 points the next candidate and there's a bit of a differentiation here um is Michael Maxwell with 16 points Jim Harriet 18 points and Glenn Adams 22 points so those are the rankings the numerical rankings that came from the one-on-one scoring yesterday again as I told you you're not that's not in cement that's changeable um you know I I think I think you did a good job as far as scoring candidates as you went so I I I think um I think we have some fairly good numbers there with regard to the numbers to today and I double triple checked them um uh some similarities there um again the lower number is the um higher ranking candidate so Fran robustelli again um uh is on the top of the list with seven points today um Kevin with 10 points uh Mr I'm sorry Fran robelli Kevin cper 10 points um Jim Harriet 18 Glenn Adams 18 and um Micah Maxwell 19 I do want to say a couple of comments about those last rankings um we had some um rankings on your sheets for tonight's interviews that multiple candidates were ranked at the same number okay there was just you know not the ability to really differentiate between those particular candidates I gave them all the lower scoring number so these rankings I still feel are are um valid rankings so that gives you some idea there of where the rankings are for yesterday and today and I think that's a good starting point mayor of any conversations that we need to have about candidates I think we have um again a bit of a different differentiation between Mr cper and the next candidate so I think we have I would say our top two candidates based on these rankings alone that said we need to have conversations because again you may change your mind you may change of ranking and that's that's fine that's what we're here for so with that said mayor I'll turn it over to you and however you'd like to proceed as far as discussion thank you MH thank you um would you all be agreeable for us to discuss the top two candidates for the time being I mean it seems like it's it's it's a significant Gap like one and two are close and then it's just you know a wide a wide Gap so maybe um could I could I ask one question before we start doing that um and I don't know if this is like a caution for myself or or for us as a commission um without final background screening on a candidate um I would hate to rank somebody you know like have the discussion rank somebody but we don't have that information back yet you know so I I guess I want a little counsel on that whether we should do that um sure or maybe it's been done already and I don't and I don't know if I could just bring you up to date on where we are with that um I went ahead and um took the liberty of moving forward so we would be as far along as possible here I do want to make this known to you any decision you make tonight about moving a candidate forward is contingent it's not in stone it's contingent it's contingent on backgrounds clearing on reference checks whether I did them or whether you want to do them it's contingent on um on everything on any kind of onboarding exercises or onboarding uh requirements that the city has maybe drug testing I'm guessing and things like that that said I can tell you with regard to these two candidates primarily um Miss robust stell's background has cleared um the last item to clear was her master's degree at University of Missouri I believe and um there was just a a kind of a um there it's usually done through a clearing house it's usually automated for whatever reason it did not populate that way but I have um obtained a copy of her degree and her information and fed it to the background company to say okay here's your stuff finish it so it's one item and when I say one item we have checked um we've checked driving records we're looking primarily for DUIs or things like that uh and you know they'll have access to a company vehicle more than likely so we want to know we check education um we check um criminal records civil records uh we check um uh all kinds of you know widescreen databases for sexual offenders for um all sorts of things I think credit may be in there we cannot make a decision on credit and uh quite frankly that's not something that would be in their personnel file it would be a summary that we've checked these things um but there's a lot of things that we have checked so I feel very comfortable um as far as her background check we have done some references which you have those reference comments we can do more if you would like if you want to call a council member before you hire a city manager away from them you're welcome to do that but but that should not um hinder us from moving forward you should have a comfort level about this so I hope I covered everything and I didn't want to jump in for the attorney but if we're if we're good um the same with Mr cper we have done his background checks um we had to update his because we did his not long ago and so that's still in progress but again I I have no concerns about Mr cper and his background um moving forward and I I wish I could guess it how quickly it's going to finalize but the truth is I don't have control over that but I know the typical background only takes a few days to finalize so I believe with these two candidates we are in a good position to go ahead and feel comfortable moving forward again everything's on contingency it will say that in an offer I will state it here publicly any Communications we have about a contract it's that that wording is there thank you I appreciate it you're very welcome thank you because I had the same question about references for instance I mean we we do have them but I certainly would love the opportunity to give a few people a call and you know be able to speak with them one-on one absolutely and and uh I will just say too with M Miss rastelli's situation um you know in Florida It's just tough on public sector candidates to apply for these jobs especially if they're working for a counsel or commission currently because they're taking a risk of losing their current job that's just the way it is um councils are very nice and they want managers to move on and do greater things but the reality is when they find out someone is competing somewhere else it often just is hard to overcome and so she's on the west coast and um her hope was that a decision would be made tonight um because she's you know she's managed this as well as she can um so in that regard you know I think I I would just want to emphasize the need to move forward expeditiously and not drag things out for 2 or 3 weeks but to your point this is the time where you know I would give you the contact information of her Commissioners or whomever and she would feel comfortable with that because we're in a different discussion now if she is your final candidate right it's it's time to open that door right we didn't want to do that up until now we talked to people who work closely to her or for her um the same with Mr cper you know we don't want to shake that bush unless we know that's the direction that we're going in so to your point mayor we would provide anything you need in the in the way of um additional references for you to communicate with just a quick followup um which I I think you may have just answered a question that I had which is um with Fran it it seemed like it was maybe potentially open-ended whether she would even be interested if the offer were made but it sounds like from her asking the question about how quickly decision could be rendered that she would in fact be interested in accepting the position theyve offered yes yes sir okay I think any of these candidates would be excited about getting an you you particularly made a point I think at the last meeting or maybe when we spoke to say it's like you know she has a very good situation where she's at yes it would have to be a really good fit for her to make the decision to move there's cross country there's a long way it's yes um she is very committed to this I've checked in with candidates over the last couple days and because they're looking at you you know too and um I think she's been very happy with what she's seen I just would hate to have a a number two who finds out that they were number two just because we offered it to the first person and then it was never even an option right sorry commissioner so my question that I think is somewhat important for us to know and I understand it's part of contract negotiation but is start date because both of these individuals would be moving from out of state yes um I do know that U Miss rastelli has a in her contract her current contract um there is a 60-day notice that she has to give um so it would not be sooner than that as of now what what happens a lot of times is once the decision is made and the city perhap you know where she currently Works gets their game plan in place for replacement or interal what have you many times they'll say you know what we're going to be good if you want to go in 45 days it's good they don't hold candidates to 60 days but currently that is what's in her contract um Mr cper would need at least 30 days and mind you these are 30 days or 60 days from the date that an agreement is put in place not from today thank you thank you thank you so is is there a way to handle it uh with sensitivity that let's say we've got two that we all love and it appears we do um where we don't kind of turn the number two person off kind of what you're alluding to he's going to watch the video today if he's not watching it right now we love them all thought about it I thought I had the same thought I'm like I bet you they're out back somewhere watching it on their phones right now you're a good point there mayor hi because number one person whoever we pick could in in reality turn it down in a week and go you know what oh um commissioner that is a great question I have no problem asking um the the number two rate candidate today if they would still be in consideration for this position should something fall through they understand this world world that you live in and this Dynamic of the industry that that happens sometimes I really think that the level of interest in your community is very high by these candidates um so I I can't predict but um you know I have no problem address addressing that and and having that conversation I think that'd be wise yes yes and I think I think even the discussions we are having um in this case about if it's Mr cper is the number two candidate I think there very solid and very good and supportive discussions we're having here um I I think you know this is hard sometimes it's very hard um you're splitting hair sometimes when it comes to candidates and you know you have to make your best decision and try to move forward and see what that is and sometimes you know events happen and things happen and things change but I think being I think if nothing else these candidates understand local government and being open and knowing that things can change and not to shut a door and not shut it quickly so I I don't know if that helps but that's my take just more remark since they probably are watching on the phones allude to what the mayor and commissioner Phil said I was floored by all five of them I thought they were I mean every one of them I would love to work with I didn't see anything there I could joked I was hoping three up i' walk in with like three eyeballs okay they're off the table but great great people so thank you thank you yeah I think whatever concerns we had with Ling it down from 95 to5 yeah thank you thank you very much um I'm going to just kind of list some terms here that you might anticipate if you want to talk about candidates first and and make it formal who we're talking about let's have a quick deliberation real quick okay let's deliberate and um and then we can talk next steps so I'll I'll start y go ahead um I yeah I certainly want to talk about I think that ranking system that Rene came up with is phenomenal um I really like that yeah yeah I really like that um but I certainly don't want to rely just on that for all of us making a decision I I want to talk about it CU maybe there's some things um I missed Fran was not my number one candidate uh I think as far as personality and internally she is a breath of fresh air um I think her personality is is phenomenal um I felt that right when she walked in the room when I met with her um however my top candidate was Kevin um I think he has a lot of experience both in and out of Florida um I feel that would translate well to our community um he's got a planning background I think his skill set would transition well with analyzing our comprehensive plan and how it aligns with our community presently um he seemed to grasp the feel of our community extremely quickly um he told me yesterday he just came in the night before and he was able to recognize things kind of the feel of the Comm Community uh very quickly I I liked his manner his personality I think he's very intelligent I think he's an extremely good listener so um that being said I think Fran is excellent in a lot of ways but I I like Kevin's experience a little bit better I I mean I I agonized over those two me too for hours MH and I still could have swapped them yeah I you know this obviously is a very important decision we all have to make I mean it's it's an opportunity um uh because we we we're at a time that you know we all know it's an opportunity for the community for um the staff um with everything that's that's transitioned through time so this decision is important one thing that I was looking at when talking to all of them and I had both both of ours as a one I really wanted to put one on but I did but I knew I couldn't but I did have both I on the same line at at the last moment I did and and you could tell by the numbers that it's possible there was um I don't want to say a struggle but however you all personally were ranking um the candidates who were all good in in the respective manner but there was something there between these two one big thing for me is experience um as a city manager um you know the they each have a background experience you know obviously um fenne has experience in HR um and then city planner um for um for Kevin both of those are things that the city needs overall right so when we think about the city and if if we had had an opportunity to do U one of the questions that that one of the candidates brought back to us yeah I wish we could tell you exactly what the direction of this current commission um with the mayor have as far as strategy and um plan or prioritization um but I think we all up here know that those two things are very important um right now in the city um so which is why hence I struggled um separating the two I almost felt like I wish I could just can we make them both one you know because they they had stuff obviously the other candidates did have experiences in professions that that I appreciate and and I know that that the city needs but I also know we have current staff who have that experience or profession that that I value as well so you know maybe in helping with um the organization of the city um and the staff we currently have we can bring some some more expertise in those other areas right so but planning and nhr was very important um to me and experience was extremely important to me um and even though we haven't met all together to kind of come through what our policies or Direction as a city um I think we all could say that those are two big important things that we have to deal with but do they have to we we don't need the leader and this is my other part we don't need the leader to be the one doing those jobs right but if you have a leader who's able to find whether if it's help in planning you know if you're able to develop the people that you have currently um and possibly um Recruit new people to help in those situations or areas then that leadership to me I think is more important than saying well you have experience in your profession as such you know um so I I think she brings that um to the city and and so does Kevin so I know this is going to be hard but but the numbers are are are close but but I struggle with both because I flip both you know so I don't know how you're all going to turn my my flip but it's just it's a hard decision because that we have so much to do and and we just need to make the decision basically you know and and I think just by looking the numbers that we all felt that way you know I I you know just look at the numbers right that we we definitely have I know we're calling them one and two but I see it as ones both of them um because it's so close the numbers are so close this is a hard decision and and um you know we we've said it in different ways but I I ended the day yesterday in some ways being very comforted because I went into this process thinking you know you couldn't come up with five people less qualified to hire a city manager than us you know and so I I give a lot of credit to Renee for creating a process that that has that has made us feel like we we've come up with some good you know a good way a good path forward and and at the end of the day yesterday I was I was very relieved to leave with the feeling that you know what we can't go wrong we you know like we have five really good candidates we probably can't screw this up um I was fortunate enough to be able to um interview Fran first yesterday morning when we were both the freshest right because it was a long day um and the thing that that um made her a strong number one for me both yesterday and today was the level of excitement that she had yesterday talking about the opportunities and the possibilities of what can happen here in St Pete Beach and um to me it was um it it seems like a really important thing for where we're at to have somebody helping to steer the ship who is really Dynamic and excited and optimistic and has a lot of really fantastic ideas about how to help us get through some challenges and to really improve things and bring the commity together and move things forward and and uh um you know I I feel like her management skills and her her recent experiences particularly um make her a a really excellent candidate for us um so I'm you know I I I feel like we're very lucky to have her now all that being said I still feel like we can't screw it up you know so uh so I think we're in a good position well yeah everything everybody said Rings true with me as well um and it was funny I had some uh well first of all both Kevin and Fran I think are going to bring a calming influence to the staff which I think is is a good trait they're almost kind of like Wayne Weighing part two here um because I think he does a good job with that as well so I think that's a huge bonus for either one of them I'll admit I had some bias when I first was reading the resumés and I'm like somebody's coming from California you know especially the bay area and I'm like you know there's there's a lot of stuff going on in the Bay Area that's a lot different than some of the things going on in Florida um so uh I had a little bit of built-in bias and it was removed completely so I mean that that was huge getting the chance to sit down and talk to her and and think it through um I think Kevin brings a wealth of uh experience and kind of that calm attitude um which I think is going to be a bonus so I'm good with either one of them um my one concern is that um I hope that with Fran we can work within a budget that's realistic because she is coming from California where things are even more expensive than here so I hope that doesn't become a hurdle um and it's something we'll have to discuss as well as obviously as a as Commissioners on what we're willing to offer um but I'm I I Echo you we can't fail I mean we have two great folks so thank you make two comments yep so one I think the five of us commissioner marott are well qualified to pick manager I do and I sincerely mean that um I think the five of us have five different backgrounds I think we've been through a lot the past few months and quite frankly I'm proud of all of us um second back to the candidates um I'll start with Fran if she's selected she's someone I would love to work with that being said to me my pick is definitely Kevin definitely yeah I I don't think you could I don't think you could go wrong with Kevin at all um you I thoroughly enjoyed I'm I don't know just for me my interview style is more conversational so we really just spend 45 minutes talking and now we all talk about the same three topics with all five of them and somehow those three topics happen to be planning and HR you know so we end up with with two individuals but um you know speaking for with you know Kevin I mean his experience in his resume speaks for himself I mean it's uh I mean if if you wanted to kind of have like a template for a great city manager resume that that fits the bill 100% um absolutely enjoyed talking with him meeting with him he has a very you know then talking him that you know the things that I wrote down were he seems very measured very deliberate just has a kind of very soothing calming attitude um which probably would be very beneficial when you have 150 staff um you know but he was also it seemed like he had you know he had purpose right he he wasn't doing things just randomly but rather um you know again just very measured and and and calculating in a in a good way you know um um his his background you know and with planning and you know working with large scale projects um you know working in revitalizing cities um I mean that's something that's that's certainly needed um so I mean those were my comments and thoughts on on Kevin um you know with with with Fran she is she's a she's a different energy I think um she I I wrote down No Nonsense I mean she really seems like she's got she knows what she wants she's going to go get it whether it's working with the staff to you know get them where we need to be whether it's working on projects and so on um the things that stood out to me is you know sometimes it's just in the language that people use um and Kevin did the same thing in fact Jim did as well but you know they talked about you know serving the community you know and she repeated that type of language multiple times customer service in the sense that you know our residents you know you know we're not we're not public right we're not the phone company but we are still a body that serves a community and so in in a sense there is customer service involved and and it it was refreshing to hear that reflected in the comments from from the applicants you know and particularly from from Fran and from Kevin um you know talking about you know how do we how do we take care of our residents how do we serve the community um right I mean ultimately they they work for the commission but the commission is put here by the residents right so and that's that's the way we serve the community I I can tell you in speaking with both of them you know they they talked about going out into the community you know look you know putting their eyes on the issues that we're seeing themselves so they can get a better understanding and handling and in fact all five of them was waiting for one to say they didn't but all five of them said yep we went down there we saw the flooding we saw what it was I found that particularly you know it was impressive and refreshing that you know it wasn't just oh we've got an extra nice two days in St P Beach on on the commissions dollar right but they used that time even though it was you know free time at your own pace today they use that in a in a deliberate and purposeful manner um I I don't those are my thoughts on the two candidates um I think they I said you're absolutely right Kevin's resumee um I mean it's it's impressive speaks for itself if the other four weren't there I would say yeah that's the guy right um I for me I think the only reason I'm I'm edging slightly more towards Fran and again I had them on the same line until the last moment I'm like okay I can't put both of them on this on the top spot if I had to put my fing on on why I I Would by a very small margin say you know friend um I think it's that level of excitement I think you saw that that different energy and sometimes you can hire for experience and you can hire for a resume and you can hire for checking the boxes okay this person has this this this this this but you can't like they either have a good attitude or they don't they're either are personable they're friendly they're you know motivated and driven and excited or or they're not right they you whatever they are when you hire them on day one that's exactly what you'll have on on the last day right um and I that that to me was just the by the smallest margin was you know again Jim to me love to sit down with him talk about the city issues and I know he would you know sit there and listen and be a great sounding board and he will do that with all of the staff and he will get on the community meet with the leaders and so on and do all that and I think that is but I also think Fran would do that as well um so for me by the smallest margin I can say because I'm I'm very much the same I have they're both there right they were the from the ge-o they they were actually there to be honest before I even met them just by looking at the resume I knew that that those two were going to stand out for me and then meeting them I I saw it that way experience very important personality important but there's nothing wrong with being different right you don't have to be the extrovert in the party right you you can still be enjoyable in conversation and and I thought that way um Fran was very um outgoing or more personable you know Kevin I didn't I didn't see it that way but I was um last night at the at the meet and greet at a distance you know kind of watching and and he was outgoing he was talking to the residents he wasn't he wasn't away from others which I did see others kind of not take a took a little more courage um you know to step forward and and I think I was standing with you Rene when I was watching from from the back and um you know Kevin did you know and then I you know when we interviewed d yester 101 and and he kind of mentioned it today about the the love dotham you know and he went into a lot of detail with me one-onone which to me I think is something that um as much as we all know we all live here and love St Pete Beach you know I want to I want to love St Pete Beach too you know on the Water Tower and and have our own hats and t-shirts and you know he doesn't have to be the raw RW cheerleader saying it you know he says it in a in a nice way how he said today um but he knew that was needed the community needed it we needed to get that way and obviously he did you know if you Googled you know what what they have over there and that these signs are out there that means that he must have taken the time with the staff and the community to get them there he doesn't have to have the pom poms in his hand right and and cheering them on um you could have both the pom poms or not the pom poms it doesn't mean you don't get the people there so I I would not base it off of the person personality um because both personalities are great right they're just different um you could be the quiet student in the classroom and you're still you know great or you could be the loudest and you're still great right um and that's the educator of me right that's not to me the deciding factor alone it's the poor personality that we're we're worried about right and so I don't see that right they don't none of them are bad as far as personality or mannerisms or or anything of that nature so um and then the key thing is experience more so to me than Fran more so about the planning because it's planning in many areas it's not I know we got Redevelopment and that's a big thing we've got the comprehensive plan that we want to address which is huge but we have infrastructure issues which is huge which has to do with development and and speaking with him and with the others as well um I wanted to hear about that um in all aspects of what we're planning for um because there's many levels planning for uh whether it's restructuring um Personnel at at the city level you know that takes planning right um planning for infrastructure planning for uh Redevelopment planning for how we're going to get this comprehensive plan you know revamped which we've been talking about but we've got all this stuff going on at the same time he understood that we are at a critical time right if if you had a balance beam you know we're we're tipping you know but once that beam tips too far you're not going to bring it back up right and and I and I really enjoyed hearing him say that because and it's not just about whether we have buildings and and I hope the community hears me on that there's so many other things that can tip you know um it's not just because you have more um uh tourism or hotelier or you know we can tip on many other areas in the city um that need to be addressed and we need someone with that expertise to talk about all the variety of things that are happening because they're all affecting each other so you know my my um ones in that small margin almost tips and talking about it which is you know what's good because I did this last night to myself you know so it helps me process it in my mind that that margin becomes smaller because of that you know um and and also because I want to hear all you all about what you think because I I hear the personality but that wasn't that wasn't what kept them so close to me because I don't think they're both personalties are great you know yeah and I don't I don't think that when I when I talked about her her her optimism and and the the possibilities she sees with the city I think that was less about about her personality than it was the the amount of thought and ideas she already had about how to drive things forward so part of it is how she communicates those things right and some of that is personality um but a lot of it was the the the ideas behind it and and in our discussion yesterday she talked a lot about um about you know celebrating wins and having having a a community and a an organization in the city and city employees and and the commission and the community as a whole that can all get together behind celebrating wins and and as a way to you know bring people together and move the community forward and make everybody feel like they're part of part of the team that's being successful and getting somewhere and so I I think that was the thing that really stood out to me about about what what to me put her at on the top of the list and and and that's not at all to say that I don't think Kevin is right up there I mean clearly his experience is is very impressive and and uh you know all of the the local experience in Florida Coastal experience is very helpful um but you know I I just go back to I I don't think we're going to screw it up so just two very short thoughts um I kind of took a informal survey of the department heads that I could find and and they seem to like both these candidates so that's a good thing I think there's another check in the box um I mean the only negative really I hate even say it's a negative is that they lack all the local contacts but as everybody else has said I I've always believe a leader can create those type of things and I'd rather have somebody that has a a sharp personality is engag in as a teammate than somebody that's got like you said all the technical background but lacking so I I'm good either way yeah and I will say I reached out to a number of of people as well um both some department heads and uh uh some residents and you know kind of anybody I could corner to to who had had any chance to review resumés or speak to the people in person last night and and uh um you know get get people's feedback um and uh uh you know I think everybody was thrilled with the level of candidates that we had um but but for the feedback that I received there was a number of people that that were very impressed by Fran as well after meeting with her last night from the community so yeah I think that the feedback I received on both of them was very positive I just want to add add one thing about Kevin that I like that that stuck out is he's worked in Florida he's been through hurricanes I know Fran's been through there's plenty of natural disasters out there as well but I I like that um that piece of it and as far as Community people I've spoke to in the community there was a lot of support for for Kevin as well um but um positive things I heard about Fran also so great I think one of the and then again I I spoke with both of them we ran overtime so it it wasn't that for lack of of good communication I think one of the other to your point with you know having specific knowledge and experience in in certain situations coastal cities you know hurricanes and so on I think um think some of the small unique Town experience like Nappa right to me um kind of echoed sort of what we have here right Napa is in a very different but very similar right right small heavily tourist driven industry you know the tension between the residents and the visitors you know how do you accommodate that you know um that was a unique experience that um I think that that came through in that in her resume um because it's it's it's tough I mean it I would imagine if I was a city imagine some ways having a normal city of 100,000 people in the middle of somewhere is might be easier than having to deal with you know the unique situation that we have right because we're small town with big city problems you but but what's nice you know too about um Kevin is because and he mentioned it today being in dotham it's kind of like being St Pete Beach we got St Petersburg right next to us you know so he I don't remember the exact numbers he said but let's just say he is from a population of 10,000 and then he went to uh 20,000 and then it's you know four times more just right you know H Hillsboro County Tampa you know it's almost the same thing we have here you know we have a lot of multiple Barrier Island City towns then we're next to St Petersburg and then we're part Tampa is part of us right we got all cross that bridge right so so it's there as well so no and with his with his Auburn experience you know tripling in size you that's a that's a significant mhm I think we're there Mr Mayor you are well who would like to make a motion in that case I'll be the canary and the coine I'll make a motion uh I move to select Francis robustelli for the position of city manager or finalist right right the motion would be to to select her as the finalist for the City attorney or whomever we city manager City man well no for the City attorney to negotiate with for the position we'll talk about the process once we I just want to clarify based on what Renee said this motion do we need to include the contingent language yes and because we always do yeah so like you're motion to selecting contingent on everything clearing everything clearing background search you know just to to make sure that there's way do we need to include um the the motion for adding a backup um just for just for any cont just contingent on any backgrounds or onboarding things that the city does we don't fingerprint we don't drug test those are things you do they will have to pass those things in order um for um you know them to become uh your next city manager so the motion should just I I I'm taking it that that you just want to include the language of that it should be contingent on anything that needs to be right cleared before uh being hired on with the city of St P Beach correct I'd like to revise my motion my question was uh really more specifically do we need to include language about Kevin as so that if something happens in the next week friend drops out we don't have to wait until the next commission meeting to start the process I'm asking I'll see how it could I would personally I would say we have to wait till the next meeting okay this point um it'll probably take until the next meeting to even negotiate a contract I think we could meet the 23rd but if I'm also thinking if a contract comes forward and there's not an agreement or meeting of the minds and at that point we would start with number two okay yeah s I've got a question like in line with that and I know when we spoke when you were here previously Renee you kind of mentioned numbers that people were looking for and they weren't totally far off um between those two candidates but um yeah I guess that's so that's part of the negotiations if you can't come to terms with candidate one whoever that would be so then it would you start negotiating with candidate two sounds like we would need a motion to then yeah well and and that's usually like how any solicitation works right if you can't come into an agreement with someone building a street and you have number two you move on to number two now I don't remember the numbers that you said I think you did mention in that last meeting that there was as far as salary the ranges that they were yes both individually looking for I don't remember those numbers yes and I think it would be appropriate for us to have input on that because I remember uh ex commissioner Grill made that comment and that kind of struck a cord with me that sure you it's part of the decision I think I so too if if I may mayor I'm just going to run down items that are typically in an agreement and then of course salary is part of that so we can have a conversation about that just to clarify the motion is dead Okay correct for the record La of a thank you thank you um for lack of a second so some of the things that we will be negotiating with candidates is a starting date I think I've talked to you about that already with Fran has a 60-day but it could become shorter than that um uh pay time off uh a lot of folks at this level in their career have built up quite a um uh accumulation of pay time off and it um is often it's it's it's very common within the industry to offer them some what I called banked time off from the get-go um 3 weeks is typical some get four weeks um and that is because you know they're changing jobs mid year they have you know they they you don't want them to start at the bottom so they can't take a day off for another year they have they have to move um they have things probably in place I don't know High School graduations weddings who knows what um and so that's not unusual for there to be some kind of Bank time off um relocation is often a consideration and you know that varies um I I've seen it done two ways and I'm just going to give you the short version here um either you just give them a flat amount of um money to say you know this moves you whether you move your stuff or not you know um this is the money that we will uh give you toward a transition a relocation what I do recommend and I'll talk with whoever we negotiate with about that you typically in Florida especially you want to put some kind of contingency on that to say if you leave within two years then you have to pay us back a certain amount the the purpose of that is unfortunately in the years past people were taking jobs so people would pay them to move down and then they' go somewhere else and work and it it's just um I think it's I think it's important to include that in there so that's not unusual to see that now um car allowance is typical because they are the city manager and used to be you would give them a car now it's more along the lines of car allowance and there's kind of an average for that of different cities U and this is probably some of the stuff that is in your former city manager's contract or maybe even two or three back these are standard things that I'm talking to you about now um another thing is professional fees and associations in order for them to participate in organizations that you want them to be part of there's an annual fee for that and a lot of times the city will pay for the city manager fees to be part of an organization or um you know some kind of continuing education or whatever um Severance is often in an agreement um years years back I don't know 5 years or so ago the state legislature uh limited Severance for City managers for public sector administrators um to 20 weeks which is 5 months prior to that you had city managers who were getting a year and a half Severance a year Severance and again people were taking advantage of that they would come down and take a job to get fired and then go get another job so um the maximum is is is 20 weeks that said um Severance usually has some contingencies on it of it would have to be they were fired for for um they were fired without cause what that does is it gives them some sort of protection that when a new commission gets voted in in an election cycle that all of a sudden if that commission just says you we didn't hire you nothing nothing against you but we didn't hire you we want to hire our manager then they have something to help them as far as Bridging the Gap and getting another position with the public sector agency that's a very common thing to see among city manager contracts I think you'll see it probably in some that you have drafted here too some other language in there might be regard regarding performance reviews when they will have those they will want those um that's an important tool for you if you haven't done this in the past or you haven't been part of doing that as a commission I highly encourage you to include that um term of term of the contract um I I used to see fiveyear contracts back in the day I don't see that anymore um I I really think a two or three to start with a two or threee contract to start with this good and you can put in there two additional years of you know uh uh where they don't have to come back and negotiate the entire contract it's just an add-on right it's a convenience for you and them if you do that um but the reality is when it comes to a city manager their first year is really getting the lay of the land right and the Dynamics and a second year is really when performance in my opinion you really see them get out the gate and do what they need to do um and then you know by the third year you've kind of settled in and you know what you've got and at that point you know what you want to who want to keep right and so again those two add-on those twoyear it gets you to a five-year but it's not a committed fiveyear if you know what I'm saying um and then the other thing is um you know you may or may not um have a request um for some housing consideration as far as um I think this was in a former city manager's contract here because of the housing cost on the beach um just kind of a an additional housing allowance each year I mean I'm sorry each month toward what the cost is to live here versus somewhere else and I'm going to tell you right now you don't they don't have to live here right there's a 10 m radius as far as where they have to live so it extends over I think into St Pete Beach and maybe some other directions but the reality is your city manager is going to want to live in the beach it's different it's different when you're living by the rules that you're carrying out of the commission right and so there is a need for that I I don't know that someone will ask for that again these folks are smart they probably got the last contract there was probably something like that in there there's a possibility but again I I wouldn't be too concerned about that and then of course salary which we you know mentioned um with these particular groups of candidates I I can't ask them what they make I can dig it out we can all find it out it's public for most of them however when I ask what they wanted to what they would like to see as a salary to consider this position and whether there was flexibility um I heard everything from you know someone wanting to be around the 225 mark up to the 250 mark and um Fran was very upfront with me about what her salary is in California and it's beyond the 250 Mark you all are right about that but again she's taken into consideration that she wants to be here this is her correct next move um next career move but also she understands there's no state income tax in Florida California is very expensive to live in everybody so normally I would kind of get concerned if someone was taking a decrease in salary to come somewhere I'm not concerned here she's she's she's crunch crunched the numbers she knows where she needs to be so she'll need to be on the high end of that range um but I think that is a competitive salary for this position I I want to I want to make that clear I do search is all over um I think that is a competitive salary for this for this position and what all needs to be done here so those are the terms that I would expect for some conversation to happen um what I need from you is um a name of a person um that we would move forward and a point of contact of who is going to be involved in the negotiations so those are the two things that you know those are my directions that I need from the council tonight if you're prepared to make those decisions right I hope that's helpful so I um you know we we heard former commissioner gross comments on Tuesday um I I don't necessarily well I I I think the salary range makes sense for the right person right if you offered somebody that 20 225 to 250 and they're not the right person then you're overspending um I think if you look at other cities of roughly 10,000 people that is not the salary range but you look at other cities of similar size in fact you can just go down to the cities that are to the north of us our neighbors and you look at our budget versus their population right so Treasure Island is half our population their budget is a third of ours it's not half look at madira beach same thing they're about 40% of our size their budget isn't 40% their budget is like 20% of our size right and so it isn't it isn't necessary because we have a different we have different issues right that we're dealing with that requires I think a different level of I think if we were to hire another manager from a 10,000 population town we wouldn't have the right person which I think why you're looking at Kevin you're saying oh my God this guy's got experience Way Beyond because those are the problems that we need to deal with right and somebody who's maybe at 100 150 range right now maybe they're they're not dealing with the issues that we're dealing with and so for me I don't necessarily have an issue because we have because we have issues that require a greater level of experience and expertise then would normally be traditional for a town of less than 10,000 people yeah I I wasn't thinking going that low like the the number you talked about but um so have you got an idea and I know clear water is way bigger city of clear water but have you got an idea what some of the ranges are up and down the beach um not necessarily and I think it's kind of along the lines of what the mayor said this was a interesting recruitment because I'm not I wasn't recruiting for 10,000 people right I was recruiting for a big city in a small area with a few number of residents right so um I can tell you in Florida in general um most uh larger communities uh are around 250 as far as their managers and uh I'm trying to think what um where clear is and I only have a frame of reference kind of from an assistant level and it was 200 plus as an assistant um so I don't know if that's helpful but no I I don't I don't I guess yeah we'll we'll I think we'll need to come up with a price tag that's fair and reasonable absolutely you know for the talent we're looking for I I guess I'm a little bit in sticker shock here I mean Admirals and Generals don't make that kind of money and they're in charge of 20,000 people and I'm just like whoa and they get all the benefits we're basically offering up the same benefits that they get except for healthcare but uh do we have healthare Healthcare is pretty standard and yeah yes I don't know if you mentioned that but I did not I did not mention benefits there are standard benefits that people expect you know and and there are things like health care and life insurance and um uh I have provided your staff by the way is excellent so I can I want to make sure I tell you that um they were just exceptional in providing me with with uh an employee manual with the um insurance premium the rates of insurance right now and a few other things that I sent to candidates early on or certainly to these five that we were going to talk with I wanted them crunching numbers early on I didn't want us to get to a place where we couldn't come to an agreement and so and I knew they were going to do their due diligence so staff provided me with a lot of information about benefits specifically on the front end that we pushed out um to them so they've had a chance to review that we do we have to answer the number tonight or is this just us talking no I think that's just part of the the conversation who's going to be them based on what the two candidates are asking for but we're talking a less than 10% difference right so was both candidates I think you had only mentioned Fran but what was um Kevin's did he say the same was in that same range the 220 250 uh 225 to 250 yes okay yes um in in looking at salary analyses I I wouldn't compare myself to Madera I wouldn't compare myself to Indian Rocks I mean those are towns they're not cities um so they're very different um so I try to look for something that looks um or or works like St Pete Beach does right um clear water is not the same so I wouldn't compare it um but places like um I used to live in cesta key so I know CS key very well and and I know it looks a lot different now than when I lived there um but it's highly residential they don't have the the hotels like we have here though that's it's going in that direction but they have a lot of Tourism and they have a lot of transient lodging going on over there um which makes it very comparable to us um in the situation actually they're they are tipping you know because they're being hit um differently um not through the hotels but the the short-term rentals um bation rentals um do you know what the city manager over there so like do we know of a city comparable to us what those salary ranges are I mean I you know there are people in high level positions that don't make this much I I think if I remember and I can't quote the number but even the mayor for the City of St Petersburg I don't think is is that high either and that's a bigger city um you know it's structured different so it is a salary truly salary let's just say compensation um so and that's what I'm looking for in a salary comparison versus just saying you know our neighbor I know our neighbor can't compare and the budget is definitely different because the structure is different you know you don't have a lot of people living here or getting a lot of property taxes and you know or you have a lot of transient people let's just say so we're not counting that population you know so um so I as I um mentioned the the range to 225 to 250 was for all of our candidates and so at some level we've done this informal salary survey to say to them where do you you want to be or need to be and they basically looked at where they are salary-wise and knowing that this was more responsibility or or you know whatever the factors were for them in Fran's case it was you know a reduction um and and came up with that um so in that regard we've done an informal salary survey if you will um that that's where these candidates are in their career where they're getting paid where they are either as an assistant uh as some of our candidates were or or even some people who are are not currently employed or they're doing temporary assignments um that's I I would say that that is a um I would say a going range for managers um in general uh in Florida and certainly I think that's supported by even where the last manager was that was here and unfortunately good or bad you know that um is kind of an indicator to people from the outside of the complexity of the job and and if someone was being paid that to do that job and again I don't think he had this huge leap into a salary from the prior manager I didn't I didn't go back that far I think he started at 175 isn't that correct yeah I think when he left though I think he was at least at May there was that that's years of and we weren't evaluating but yes the base was 175 and coming from a large city so and I just like to say that because I know that people search and look at what the prior right city manager made right um but I don't think you should just be I think that the challenge is because we had this conversation with the previous Commission because we did have conversations about salivary range so that we knew what to advertise and it's kind of tough for us to go back at this point and say well I know we advertised 225 to 250 is that what was advertised I mean I don't remember what the exact that was that was what was communicated to me I don't advertise the salary range I don't the salary range but I still need to know behind the scenes those were those were the conversations those discuss hadre those are the expectations that were sort of set and it'd be really tough at this point if we have four people that they all were expecting something in that range which is why we're getting the caliber of individuals that we have if we didn't have that range I don't think we'd be getting those five individuals I think we would have looked at five different individuals and you know and I appreciate that mayor because even though I remember sitting in in the audience when all that was going on I didn't remember that detail so it is good to know because you know a lot of people also in the public forget that maybe that conversation was already had um because I definitely didn't remember that you know my frame of mind maybe at that moment was different thinking that why is it so High um but there was I know there was a lot of thought placed in it I think there's there's maybe a different way to look at it to commissioner ROM's point because I had sticker shock the first time I found out so it's no one should be under the impression that we think oh it's just Chum change it's nothing now it is it is a lot of money um but I also think that presents an opportunity right because if you're getting paid here my expectations are going to be here as well right and so if you're going to get paid like a general well I expect you to perform like a general and I expect you to deliver like a general right they all talked you know they all told us about how great they were and what they're going to do and all these amazing things and I'm like you know you're getting paid top of the scale then we expect top of the scale performance as well I think that that goes hand in hand I would expect that they know that as well but I also think that we keep that in the back of our mind you know as we talk about you know I think you know six-month evaluation would be certainly prudent you know on in addition to the annual evaluations just to be able to um I forget which one of them said it is like you know we'll always make sure you know when you know and so I don't want to wait a year to have you know discussion about okay we need to see more here more here this is great and we can make some tweaks or maybe everything's amazing right right but we need to communicate that either way but I think the expectations should be in line with the with the top of line salary that they're getting and base salary right yeah y okay and I I agree with the mayor I think the other thing we need to keep in mind is that um somebody who is a a really top performer who is coming in at that level has the ability to save the city so much money in so many ways with increased efficiency and less turnover among staff and you know there's there's dozens of ways where a really high performing city manager you know maybe maybe any one of us would look at that and go man that's 25 30 maybe even $40,000 more than we wish we were spending per year on that person but when you look at the city's budget overall and the ability for a really top level manager to to save you know hundreds of thousands of dollars in increased efficiency um you know I would I would expect the the return on investment of getting a really high performer to to to also be pretty high it's a good point okay I give so just the thought maybe at this point we get to the decision on who's going to be doing the negotiations so Mo uh well we need a motion first and then do I need to amend my motion uh will you need to make it from scratch all right ited let's see if I got all the points covered here um there's two separate motions okay I'll do the first one first then I moved the select Francis robustelli for the position city manager contingent on the background checks and the onboarding um requirements for the city of St Pete Beach thank you Paul second any further discussion speak now forever hold you piece still I'm I mean Haven I'll just say if Fran is selected I'll be very excited to work with her um but you know I I made it clear with where I stand on it um I think the next few years on St Pete Beach are probably going to definitely going to shape the next 30 to 40 years um and I feel most comfortable with Kevin as our city manager out of these candidates for that I appreciate that city clerk if you'll please to a roll call commissioner as [Laughter] Nikki no commissioner Lorenzen yes commissioner Marat yes commissioner Philz no mayor patrilla yes motion carries 3-2 thank you and then the next conversation we need to have is um having an authorized person to enter into negoti into nego jeez negotiations where is the water negotiations thanks FR with Fran robelli um with this one I would I think this motion is a good opportunity to include the number two if negotiations fall through okay this could be a good opportunity to include the number two and and our already give the authority to to our office to negotiate with number two if if things happen to fall through so I know I know you and I have spoken briefly about usually what some of the options are what some other cities usually do in the situation as to who the assigned person is yes um you want to sure um often it will be either the chair of the board um or the mayor um as the point person to be involved in negotiations with the candidate we are contracted with you to be involved in that if you need our help sometimes it's helpful to have a third person involved um and uh uh often times it's it's a City attorney who's asked to be that point person attorney will be involved anyway because they're going to have to draft the contract right um so it's just really about I think who you want to appoint actually go through the negotiations itself and identify the terms where we want to be on those items that we talked about and and then you have it put in a contract form to come back to the board for approval at some point uh in other situations if the city man if there's a city manager who's still on board you know and they're retiring in a month or so they may be involved in negotiations uh in your case you have an interim city manager who probably would be willing to do that um I think more times than not it's the mayor and then sometimes it's attorney and then sometimes the city manager kind of in that in that order I mean it's I I I personally don't have a problem taking that responsibility it's not anything I haven't done before so it's feel comfortable doing it um this is in no way reflection of the City attorney um but they're one of the three chartered officers and I don't think the three I don't think the other two charters officers should be in uh if I'm so are you suggesting that we don't get invol no no no in the negotiation obviously you'll have to draft the contracts and stuff no no I'm just saying negotiating a contract of another chartered officer but you would obviously draft it you know based on the terms that are that are agreed on terms that would have to be approved by the commission what and mayor would you would you be comfortable with or or would you would you like to or not matter to you to have um to have Wayne as our interim City outgoing city manager involved just to have somebody who's been through those city manager negotiations a number of times in his career would that be helpful to you absolutely AB I mean I would I would be relying on on both you know Wayne and and Renee heavily um yeah because again with you know it's not a situation with Wayne where like he's getting kicked out and like he's you know grumpy and grouchy and he just doesn't you know no I don't think that's a situation at all absolutely not but I also realize he's got a lot of his plate right now with everything going on not that we don't um no but I would be relying heavily and he's been a great resource in in many of these things so just to clarify you'd be the lead and you'd have a team with you yeah I would have a team of of two more I'd like to bring up a point on that with um with Wayne and something I have talked to him about in in meetings my understanding is he is willing to stay on board as a consultant maybe not being in person here of course but um so I don't know if that would be part of the negotiations I'd of course want the candidate you know France to be open to that so um typically what I see commissioner is that um and in the case of Wayne he would be available um to communicate with the new city manager uh there's some his there's historical information that's going to be valuable to the new city manager that he can provide um and and I think Wayne will be more than happy to do that uh he's been um you know just a great help throughout even this process with me so I don't want to speak for him but I I think that would be helpful I don't think it needs to be part of the negotiations or anything more formal than that just um you know inquiring if if he would make himself available to fill in the blanks if you will if there are some and there always are some so I think that would be very helpful to a new city manager okay he had told me the same thing we had the same conversation so just you all know I was of course for the same reason because of the history and and things and projects that are you know going on right now that um we don't want to forget may be expiring or whatever may be you know so I agree thank you um mayor just one more thing real quick and I don't mean to put anybody on the spot that's not my job I mentioned earlier that if we did come down to a 3-2 vote on a candidate oftentimes uh I would ask if you would be willing to to give another vote if you will and it's more of a vote of support I mean we've spent a lot of time talking about just the hairline differences between these two candidates and I think it came through loud and clear what kind of support and and even commissioner Phils just said you know I fully would support whoever goes forward but um I think for the candidate it means something um to have a five vote that says we the five of us support you and again if if it's not the will of the commission to do that that's fine I just wanted to mention it again well I'll leave that open to the two descending votes yeah I will say actually our our code requires I was going to wait our code requires at least four at least four thank you mhm I'm sorry I missed that last part at least four four instead of a 3-2 vote to approve Fran moving forward there has to be for so if you read the motion you want you took the motion so does that cancel out the original vote um no so the way I was interpreting this motion right now is you're selecting Fran to begin negotiations technically in my opinion when the contract's in front of you and guys have all agreed to terms is when you will actually appoint her for a term for the city manager so I'm personally okay with 32 I'm just letting you know what the code says which is once you actually select someone it is four votes minimum yeah right good so she's been selected to negotiate negotiate okay I see yeah the motion was to enter into negotiation I say do we make the same motion is that what would we if you I this is something that I don't think is legally necessary I think it's just a request of Renee okay on behalf of the candidate yeah I mean if do we need something formal or can we just say we support her I mean because I totally support her I'm excited to work with her you can say without a doubt yeah and and I am too and I am I am for making the motion because I do like I said I it's almost I told you all I wasn't sure if they already because I they were very it was very marginal in my mind you know so I am okay with doing that okay I guess my my point I'm trying to get at is uh I mean not can erase what you said well no it's it's like okay from an outside perspective I don't want someone to see what the vote was and they it's it was a 5 vote for the candidate well I think we I think we have another vote coming up in a few weeks if we get to that providing we get to that point but I think what you've heard loud and clear from the Commissioners even the sting voices and I'll even say this for for Kevin's sake this was it was not a vote against him or in any way I mean it it would be ecstatic to have him I think we' we've all you know so Fran will have our 100% support yeah okay thank you thank you mayor can we please have a motion on yes I move to authorize the mayor to negotiate the contract for the new city manager Fran robustelli for City commission consideration and to um or and for Kevin cper as our secondary choice you you you wanted you asked for the backup so tell us no no I know I just think that I believe Rene's office is going to be involved in potentially Wayne I just think the motion needs some no no disrespect some fixing no we we can just the mayor in cooperation I mooved to authorize the mayor Renee and the current interim city manager to negotiate with the selected city manager finalists and if needed the second finalist write that out for me that I'd like to revise my motion so I get this right I move to authorize the mayor the City attorney Renee the city manager and the city manager the current city manager not the City attorney it's fine cuz we're going to draft the yeah okay to to negotiate the contract for the new city manager for City commission consideration and to um have Kevin cper as our secondary Choice do we have a second I'll second city clerk if you'll please do a roll call vice mayor Lorenzen yes commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Phils yes commissioner o Niki yes mayor patrilla yes motion carries thank you Renee is there anything else that we have we have reached the point of decision thank you thank you very much it's been a pleasure really I I'll be working with staff and stuff to move things along and give you updates as we go it's been a pleasure meeting all of you and doing doing this process with you and um you've been great you've been really great and um I think that's why it was so attractive honestly to candidates they came in they learned about the city they met with you and they felt really good about it so thank you all very much we appreciate your efforts thank you thank you thank you all right unless there's something else we are adjourned excellent